Origin of the Duel Masters
by primadonnabloodbath
Summary: Ever wondered what Chavez, Kimora, and Nadia were like when they were acolytes around the kids' ages? How about how when they first were introduced to Kaijudo? Did they always have their loyal and trusted partner creatures by their side? And how old IS Master Jaha anyways? Most of these will be answered here! Except Jaha's age, I doubt even she remembers how old she is. Rated T!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Fun Fact!~ This story actually took 7 consectutive hours to finish over the course of one day. I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back because god, this was harder to revise than it looked. Also, this story probably makes more sense canon-wise if you've watched both seasons of the show, so you might wanna think about doing that first, and then coming back to read this.

 **Disclaimer:** This story was not written by the person who currently owns Kaijudo. It was written by me, and so by extension, I don't own this series. I do, however, own the character Alexandra Rojas as well as most of the Lobachevski family. Also, Aaron Hawkins is Master/Specialist Hawkins, just so we're clear, he's not an OC.

* * *

 **10 years prior**

Nadia Lobachevski was always a curious girl, looking for new information and explore for anything fun wherever she went. Of course, being only four years old, this led to quite a bit of problems with her and her family. She was the youngest child out of six children, but she still managed to keep everyone else on their toes to make sure she didn't decide to "explore" her way into a ditch.

Of course, they weren't always right on top of her every move.

Late one January night, in the town of Kropotkin in Krasnodar Krai, little Nadia sat wide awake in her bed, looking out her window at the thick snowfall. The blizzard had just ceased, and only a few flakes fell from the sky on the already thick banks outside. They glittered softly from the stars and lights off of the streetlamps.

Oh, how Nadia wished to play outside, to enjoy this beautiful display first-hand. She hopped out of her bed to first check around if anyone else was awake. With every room she went into, it was the same. Her parents were fast asleep, as were both her older brothers, the twin sisters, and her single older sister.

She was a bit disappointed that they couldn't join the fun, but she didn't wish to rudely awaken them just for her. So, she dressed up in her warmest black and blue gloves, boots, coat, and ear warmers, before gently opening the front door and softly closing it behind her as she left.

Off and away into the thick snowbanks did she bound. Her long raven black hair bouncing and flying around as she played around and rolled, giggling happily. Kicking up mounds and spinning on her heels until she fell down, happy as could be. But then, Nadia saw something in the distance that she hadn't noticed before.

It was a pitch black shed, out in the middle of nowhere. It didn't appear to be connected to any house or anything of the sort, just a singular building standing about 13 meters away. Either it was brand new, since she did not recognize the look of it, or she was much farther from her house than she thought.

Needless to say, her curiosity got the best of her, and she plodded over to check it out. The door looked as if it were bolted tight, but a gentle push proved otherwise, as it loudly creaked open almost immediately. The entire room was barren, only about as big around as a car, and there was a bright horizontal green light directly in the center.

She had barely reached out and brushed it with her fingertips when she found herself in a completely different place. The room was now wide open and rocky, illuminated by a handful of torches, and the platform she stood on (where did that come from?) slowly rose up with a rocky scraping noise. She was absolutely scared out of her wits at this point.

A small stalker-sphere, alerted by the sudden usage of the temple way lines, buzzed into the room. It examined the "intruder" before zipping away. Nadia followed it, wondering if it could maybe help her find someone to bring her back home. She ran all the way out of the room and into the main area of the dojo, giving up catching it, and chasing after another stalker-sphere until she made her way into the most beautiful room she'd ever seen.

The Kaijudo Library.

Nadia could not read English nor Russian, but this was the most fabulous place she had witnessed in her young life. Everything was glowing and bright, almost as if they had come from another world. She abandoned the stalker-sphere and turned her attention to this magical place. She took each and every single tablet she could find and placed them in a huge stack on one of the tables, examining each and every one of them, until the warmth of the room and her own exhaustion dragged her down into sleep.

And Master Jaha, already fully aware of their little visitor was all set to bring her back home. She picked up the girl, careful not to jostle her awake, and started to make her way back to the chamber with the way-lines without a second thought. "And where do you think you're going?" Master Brightmore's voice called out from behind.

Master Jaha only turned to him and smiled. "Why, I'm bringing this little girl home. Everything tonight will be brushed off as a sweet dream. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to use a cyber virus on her." This quickly shut Nigel up, and Master Jaha proceeded on her merry way, humming a soft lullaby.

* * *

 **10 months prior**

There were many words that one could use to describe Isobel and Rafael Chavez, both positive and negative. None of those words were "Motherly," "Fatherly," or anything of that sort. Not to say they were intentionally horrible people, but that they were merely too scholarly for the act of child-raising, or so gossip spread.

Both parents were well-educated, with Isobel majoring in science and historical events and Rafael in medical studies. Needless to say, their child would be just as educated as they, whether the child knew it or not. And, against the wishes of most likely everyone in their town, the couple had a son named Hector.

Hector, while not neglected or injured, wasn't exactly treated as one would and should expect. Not to mince words, but he was treated as if he were a student to them, rather than their own child. By the age of eight, he'd memorized enough rules and guidelines to fill up a terms and agreement page on a cell phone.

In what could be seen as a testament to the Chavez's bizarre parenting, he was almost immediately shipped off to a private boarding school out of the country at the age of thirteen. If his life wasn't comedically dull before this, it would most certainly worsen with this new development. But fate never seems to have a certain rhyme or reason to it, as he would soon find out in his second year at the school.

Hector Chavez, now fourteen years old, was busy in the midst of homework in his dormitory (which is a massive oxymoron, come to think of it) late at night. But there was one thing keeping him from having undivided attention on his Chemistry, and that was a series of noises coming from outside. It sounded as if a pair of dogs were fighting loudly right in the middle of the courtyard.

He ignored it, deciding his studies were more important than watching a pair of dogs rip each other's throats out. But, it was definitely strange, as it soon dawned on him that there would be no reason for there to be a pair of wild dogs in the middle of a private school. His curiosity leapt up when he heard the voice of his Headmistress distantly call out.

"...Back from where you came!"

Now, he was in a bit of a predicament. He knew he wasn't allowed outside of his room after sundown, but he couldn't just sit there with one of his superiors in possible need of help. Against all his better judgement and fourteen years of teachings otherwise, Hector slowly opened the door, and stepped outside.

And stared in awe at what was right in front of him.

Headmistress Rojas was dodging attacks from a massive bipedal wolf-like creature. To her side was another creature, though much smaller in size and resembling more of a shining blue alien. The wolf lunged at her again, but she deflected the blow with a small shield from her hand. Looking a bit closer, he saw a fuchsia glove on that hand.

Honestly, he was completely enthralled with the entire event. He watched wordlessly from afar, as Rojas and the blue creature proceeded to curbstomp the wolf into the ground. When it finally collapsed, and disintegrated into a pile of leaves, he did not move, wondering what else might happen.

But then, the blue creature suddenly looked up, and directly at him, its eyes flashing bright red. Hector fell backwards, and then quickly scrambled back into his room, locking his door, shutting the lights off and crawling under the covers of his bed. After what felt like an eternity in six minutes, a single sharp knock sounded on the door, and Rojas' voice rang clear again.

"Mister Chavez," she said, as Hector very slowly pulled the covers off of his head. "I know you're in there. The sooner you let me in, the faster this will be over with."

Hector sat up on his bed, staring at the door. Oh, he was going to be in serious trouble, and his parents would find out and he would be dead. Another knock came at the door. "Mister Chavez, I know you're not asleep. This isn't like you, boy."

He very slowly made his way to the door, flicked on the lights, and unlocked it. "Good evening, Miss Rojas."

"Mister Chavez," she said, with a matter-of-fact tone present in her voice, crossing her arms. "Were you out of your dormitory after your given hours?"

"Yes, but…" He started. "I just heard noises, and I was worried about you, and I didn't want to not help, so I-"

"I don't need any excuses. Were you out or were you not." She loudly replied, cutting him off.

"Yes."

"And how much of that little altercation did you see?" she asked, pointing outside towards the courtyard with her thumb.

"I don't know, some of it?" He shakily responded. "I-I saw you kill that wolf creature, and the other thing you had with you."

Headmistress Rojas rubbed her eyes, nudging her glasses a bit out of place, only for them to fall back perfectly where they had begun on her nose. She then knelt down to Hector's height. "Now, Chavez. I want you to be honest with me. That is all I truly ask for now. With all of that in mind, how much of this would you like to understand?"

Hector thought about it for only a couple of seconds before making his decision. "All of it."

* * *

 **10 days prior**

"Look, I'm just saying, Galaxy Battalion is just getting weird with a sudden prequel trying to explain stuff we already know!"

"True, but you've gotta admit that the special effects actually look decent, and don't look like a bunch of people in rubber suits and bad wigs."

Fourteen year-old Kimora Benjirou and Aaron Hawkins were enjoying a perfectly normal Saturday afternoon. The two were walking down the city square, just talking about their shared interests, anxieties and frustrations about school, theorizing about new comics, and at this point in time, arguing over whether or not the Galaxy Battalion franchise should have gotten a prequel, or stayed on its own with only the original duo of movies released.

"It was made in 1971!" Aaron retorted. "They had an excuse, it's not like they slapped together something at the last minute! Besides, it could've been drawn on a napkin and it'd still have a better storyline than this one."

"But we finally got an answer as to why Princess Hexavill's entire species suddenly became nocturnal only fifty years ago!" Kimora insisted. "And don't tell me you didn't think it was cool when Denver Sigmallion's left arm got robotized."

"Denver was the only good part of the movie," Aaron said. "And that's just because they changed half his sister's backstory so that she'd turned into an evil empress who tried to melt down her own hometown instead of a misunderstood anti-heroine who was forced into slavery by her uncle."

"Yeah, that… really wasn't needed. I'm just going to pretend that Rin was seeing things after he got pistol whipped by that cyborg." Kimora said, looking at the ground. A loud crash from inside an alleyway suddenly interrupted their conversation, as Aaron held out a hand in front of Kimora to stop him from moving. "You hear that?" he whispered.

"How could I not?" Aaron responded. The two teenagers slowly looked into the alley, and could see something rattling inside of a trash can. Suddenly the can exploded, a tiny missile rocketing out and spraying wet newspaper and torn metal to the left and right of the alley. Both boys ducked as the missile shot over them and plowed into a fire hydrant, breaking it in half.

"Who would put a bottle rocket in a trash can?" Kimora nearly screamed, watching the hydrant suddenly geyser upwards. "That's no bottle rocket…" Hawkins said, his eyes widening. He immediately got back up, lifting Kimora once he'd gotten stable on two feet. "C'mon, I think I know what did that!" He yanked Kimora's arm, dragging him along with him as he ran down the street.

"Wait, d-don't you mean who?" Kimora asked, trying his best to keep up with Aaron. After what felt like forever, Hawkins finally slowed down to a halt as they arrived in front of an empty greenhouse. He then turned to Kimora, still catching his breath.

"Y'know when I said that I needed to tell you something… like two weeks ago… but I chickened out and told you I'd forgotten it?" he gasped. Kimora nodded, still gasping for breath himself. "Cool. I'm gonna… You're… Just watch, okay?"

Aaron pulled a black half glove out of his back pocket, and put it on. He then closed his eyes and clenched his fist in front of his face, the gauntlet lighting up with a blue glow as he did. When he unclenched his fist, the half-glove had been transformed into a dark maroon glove, with brown highlights. Kimora stared in wordless awe, as Aaron opened his eyes and smiled.

"And that's just the beginning!" He rushed over to the doors of the greenhouse and pushed them open. Kimora followed, still reeling from the sudden weirdness. "How did… what. Did you do that, or is it?"

"I'll explain later, dude. Right now, I've gotta take care of something before it gets way too outta hand. Stand back a little!" He then proceeded to perform a Fire summon kata, calling out "Scrap Heap Hunter!"

A portal with the Fire civilization's insignia opened up, and a small fiery gremlin popped out of it. At this point, Kimora was a combination of confused, excited and really shocked. "Yeah," he said. "I'm. I think I'm going to sit down for a while and rethink my entire life." He said, taking a seat on a bright green rock.

Except, as luck would have it, this rock was no rock at all! It was a Launcher Locust, and it had currently been rudely woken up from its slumber by a rather unfortunate Kimora. It hissed loudly, unearthing itself from the ground and frantically attempting to buck him off.

"Ben!" Aaron called, horrified at the possible danger he'd put his friend in. He turned to the Scrap Heap Hunter, and motioned towards the Locust. "You've gotta help get my friend away from that thing before me becomes bug juice!" The Burn Belly nodded, and immediately began searching around for objects to be used as projectiles.

Meanwhile, Kimora was screaming. "You know what? I don't want to know what your secret is! I just wanna go home, and go to bed, and get my sleeve out of this thing's back scales, and forget everything!" His speech became much more frantic and fast as the sentence went on, as he tried yanking his jacket's sleeve away from the bug's turrets.

The bug suddenly stopped, jerking Kimora forward and off of the bug, tearing half of his sleeve off in the process. It then loomed over him, turrets ready to fire, mandibles drooling, eyes bright red…

And then the Scrap Heap Hunter fired a bunch of makeshift flaming arrows into its back, launching it straight into a wall, and banishing it away. Aaron ran over to Kimora and helped him up. "Oh man, I am so, so sorry! You okay?"

"No, no, no! I'm fine! Just don't call me 'Ben' anymore, alright?" He dusted himself off, and looked over to where the monster had vanished, and then looked back at Hawkins. "So… is that everything you needed to tell me?" he jokingly asked.

"Well, not _everything_ …"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** All speaking in different languages, if needed to further the plot, will be written in bracket signs {like this} for the sake of me not screwing up hilariously with Google Translate, and having everyone talk in English is weird. Yeah, that's not saying much considering this series, but still. Also, lookit all these duel master ships! They're just falling from the sky!

* * *

10 days after Kimora's first introduction to the creature realm, and a very lengthy explanation by Hawkins later, the latter decided it was about time that he showed his friend the temple. After school, Aaron and Kimora told each other's parents that they were going to hang out together for a bit, and they made their way to…

"A used book store?"

Kimora was a bit confused. All this talk about harrowing adventures took place in a book store? It was almost like some kind of massive joke was being played on him.

"Look, if you can believe everything else I've told ya, you can believe this." Aaron said, walking into the book store. Kimora followed, although moderately disappointed. Inside was a very old woman wearing all purple, standing in front of a black door and intently reading something. She looked up at the two and smiled.

"Jaha! This is Kimora. He's really interested in what we do, and he wants to know more." He explained. She nodded, and stepped out of the way, going back to her book. Hawkins opened the door to reveal a hidden staircase lined with rocks, and a dim gold light at the end.

"I'm starting to believe again." Kimora aid breathlessly, and the two boys started walking down the steps. "Though, it's probably going to be a little complicated to explain to my parents why I'm suddenly making daily visits to a used book store. Maybe I can apply for a job upstairs?" His train of thought beautifully derailed the second he saw what was at the bottom of the passageway.

"Welcome to the temple of the Kaijudo Duel Masters!" Aaron triumphantly proclaimed. Kimora's eyes lit up as he stared down the massive steps leading into the cavern. There were all sorts of light creatures hovering about, casting beams of light across the area.

"Race you down the stairs!" Kimora called out, darting down the steps. Aaron laughed as he followed suit, nearly tripping a few times on his sneakers. And then, Kimora actually did trip. His fall was luckily broken by a young boy in a prep school uniform, as they crashed on the ground in a heap. Another woman, in a similar outfit walking a few feet behind him gasped in panic, and rushed over to the collision site.

"Oh man! I am so, so, sorry!" Kimora shoved himself off the poor boy, bushing wildly. He dusted off his shirt, jacket, and jeans, all the while trying to avoid eye contact until his face got less red. The other boy didn't respond, he just picked himself up and rubbed his arm from where he'd fallen. The woman then grabbed him and looked all round his body to see if he'd gotten seriously injured.

"My apologies, miss! We didn't mean to, uh. Interrupt you guys." Aaron said, after he caught up to Kimora. Kimora proceeded to look down at his shoes and mess around with his ponytail out of sheer embarrassment.

The woman shook her head. "There was no harm done; it was an accident, surely you don't deserve punishment for that. It's quite alright, isn't it, Chavez?"

Chavez rolled his eyes, but nodded. "Yes it is, Master Rojas."

"Oh!" Aaron bowed in reverence. "I didn't know you were her. Master Tiera told me you were coming this day or the next. This must be your… young acolyte?"

"You're as old as me!" Chavez said defensively. "How am I any 'younger' than you?"

"Well, how long have _you_ been an acolyte?"

"An entire year!"

"Well, I've been one for two years! And two months! And three weeks!" He paused for a moment, counting on his fingers. "Or four, maybe? I dunno. But, I still know more about dueling than you do!"

"You willing to bet your life on that?"

"Guys, guys! Calm down. We shouldn't just be standing around and insulting each other like this." Kimora said, fully aware that they had attracted a large crowd with their argument.

"You're right, K." Aaron said. Kimora gave a sigh of relief, but this hope was dashed when Aaron then said "How's about a battle to see who's the best?"

"Uh," Kimora began. "That's not what I mean-"

"You're on. Meet me in the coliseum." Chavez said, storming off in the opposite direction. The woman sighed deeply, and then followed right after him. Aaron also went off with the other acolytes and adepts that had circled around to see what was going on.

Kimora hung his head in annoyance, but was softly elbowed by a small girl with curly bright ginger hair, who smiled sweetly and said "Don't worry about it. Aaron's all bite and no bark, he'll go easy on him. I'm Kelly, what's yours?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Daphne Lobachevski was busy looking for her sister. Nadia always played outside before breakfast, and today was no different. In fact, she could usually been seen in the backyard for a vast majority of her day, but if she was not in bed in the morning then Daphne knew that she was playing.

Of course, Nadia didn't mean to worry her on purpose, but she always treated every morning hunt as a game. Every day, she would always be in a different place for one of her siblings to find her. It had become sort of a chore for them, but as long as it kept her happy.

Today, Daphne found her littlest sister in a large black tree, scrambling and darting in and around its branches like a hyperactive squirrel. And in her best coat and tights, to boot. Daphne sighed and called up to her loudly.

{Nadia! Nadia! I found you.}

Nadia looked down from the branch she was on, her long black hair tossing over her shoulders. She grinned, waved down, and the continued to go higher up into its inner workings.

{Nadia, get down from there. You're not being very ladylike.}

{Oh, is this not ladylike?} She said, flipping onto one on the branches and hanging upside down by her knees, with a sarcastic smirk on her face. She then proceeded to fool around in the tree much more, to her sister's chagrin.

{Nadia, please.}

{How about this?}

{Nadia.}

{Or this!}

{Nadia! Cut it out!}

{But I'm not doing anything.}

{Just be back in time for breakfast, won't you? Mama will have a fit if your food gets cold because of you horsing around.}

Daphne then turned on her heel, done arguing for the morning. Nadia shrugged, and slowly started to make her way down the tree, careful not to slip on any tangled branches. She hit the ground with a soft plop, landing gently in the treaded snow. She was about to follow her sister back, when a distant metallic ringing noise caught her attention.

She turned around, trying to distinguish where it came from. In the distance, she saw a golden light, circular in shape, slowly vanish with another beep and dart off and away. With a slight sense of déjà vu, Nadia followed it, the only thing guiding her further was its nigh-invisible outline.

A few minutes later, she stumbled across a bizarre place. It was a black shack out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't attached to anything, nor were there any signs or fences to indicate who it belonged to. Against her better judgement, she went straight up to the house and opened the door, to reveal an entirely empty room with only a green horizontal beam of light in the center.

She knew this place, from a dream she had as a toddler. A beautiful library hidden in a dark house, with little light fairies there to guard and protect it. The green light she saw was just as bright as she remembered, and she stuck her hand in the light once more, just to see if her dreams were true.

* * *

{Hector, stay focused.}

{I always do.}

Master Rojas was busy talking with her acolyte before the battle. While she disliked aggressive events of power display, she knew that she could not talk him down from this, so it was best to just go along with him. Besides, a lesson or two in humility couldn't hurt.

{Remember your training! If you cannot keep steady, you will be floored with ease.}

{Don't worry, I've got it. I'll do my best.}

He crawled down the wall of the coliseum, and stood to face Aaron, activating his bright orange gauntlet as he did. Aaron activated his own, and the two went into their stances, and performed their summon katas.

"Corporal Pepper!"

"Citizen Tokori!"

The fire and water creatures burst forth from their portals, as the duel masters observed on one side, and the adepts and acolytes on the other. Kimora was nervous as ever, and fidgeted around a little bit in his seat as Kelly tried to calm him down.

"You see, he's summoned a hybrid! That gives him an equal chance of winning or of losing against Chavez." She tugged on his jacket sleeve and pointed. Kimora looked down at the two, and immediately covered his eyes when Hector ordered Tokori to fire directly at them both.

Aaron blocked the blast, but lost his footing and fell on his back. Corporal Pepper blasted the rocket with this own gun and barely dodged the resulting explosion. "Surrender now, Aquan!" He bellowed in a deep voice. "Lest ye be burned by the fires of your own frailty. And my gun."

Tokori gurgled loudly and angrily in response, lifting its cannon arm down and raising the other in a 'come at me' gesture. Aaron weakly stood back up, rolled his shoulders, and gestured towards the hybrid, and then at the water creature's cannon. Corporal Pepper nodded, and charged head-on.

{He's not doing it right.}

Kimora uncovered his eyes when he heard a girl's voice right next to him. He looked up and saw Nadia, with a tablet about Citizen Tokori under her arm. Of course, he had no idea how to speak Russian, so his response was a flat "What?"

"Not doing it right." She repeated, sitting down next to him and the girl. She took her jacket off, smoothed her sort and blouse, and then pulled the tablet out and pointed directly to it. "Tokori is fighting like a Bezerker. He is not one, so that boy is not using the creature to its full power."

"I… see." Kimora said. A loud bang directed their attention back to the arena, where Corporal Pepper currently had latched onto Tokori's tails with his claws. The duel masters on the other side seemed to agree with Nadia's claim.

"And are you sure that he's been training under you?" Master Brightmore said, eyeing Chavez as the boy was frantically trying to divert the hybrid away from his creature.

"Positive," Master Rojas said, glaring at him. "He's just a bit skittish when people are watching, that's all."

Master Tiera looked closer at the battle going on. "If you ask me, he was no idea what he's doing with a Water creature. It doesn't seem to suit him at all. Did you really only teach him your specialty?"

Master Rojas awkwardly chuckled. "Well, it's not like he was going to get himself into any breaches or incidents for a while. I'll have you know that the compound is nearly impenetrable."

Brightmore was about to make a snarky comment about 'nearly impenetrable' as opposed to fully, but then he saw a face on the other side that he hadn't seen in a decade. "Oh, 'all a pleasant dream', my foot." He whispered as he got up from his seat and walked out of the coliseum.

Meanwhile, Tokori had finally thrown Pepper off of himself, and was now ready to blast him to kingdom come. However, he didn't notice that the hybrid had stuffed his own gun into the cannon's barrel, and he was blown right back into the Water Civilization. Hector could only stare with his mouth agape, and fell to his knees.

The acolytes, adepts, and Kimora and Kelly cheered loudly for Aaron, and Rojas gave a small golf clap as Tiera tried her best to hide a condescending grin. Kimora turned to Nadia, all ready to ask her if she'd seen how awesome that was, only to find that she wasn't there. All that remained was her coat, which he picked up, ready to return to her.

* * *

Nadia had left as soon as she had seen Pepper's sneak attack, not wanting to see poor Chavez's reaction when his attempts literally blew up in his face. She was currently in the library, examine on which tablet to read next. She noticed a Water one on a high shelf, and reached up to grab it, only for her arm to be snatched by a rather angry Brightmore.

"And what do you think you're doing?" He asked. Nadia was speechless out of fright, and tried to wrench her arm away from his grasp, but he retained a firm grip. He then proceeded to drag her all the way down the steps, and over to one of the fissures full of cyber-viruses. He was about to drive them from the water when a voice suddenly called out from the doorway.

"Hey, leave her alone!" It was Kimora, who had Nadia's coat sleeves in one hand, and held out the other in front of Brightmore. He ran over to the duel Master, yanking at his arm and trying to get him off of her.

Nigel glared down at him. "I don't quite think you understand what's going on here." He yelled in pain and released Nadia's arm as Kimora delivered a sharp kick to one of his shins. Nadia quickly ran up the stairs, and grabbed the tablet, holding it up as a sort of shield in case he tried to grab her again.

"She's… she's with me!" Kimora quickly blurted out without thinking. "She's going to be an acolyte with me, and she was just getting me stuff to help study, that's all." He hoped this lie sounded sincere enough to get the man off his back.

Master Brightmore rolled his eyes, but relented. "Very well. Study as you wish." He then stormed off, with one hell of rant forming in his head to give to Master Jaha. After he'd left, Kimora gave an extremely anxious sigh of relief, and felt much better. Nadia walked down from the steps and started down the hallway to make sure he wasn't coming back.

"Oh! You, uh, forgot your jacket," Kimora said, remembering why he came here in the first place. "Here!" He handed it over to her with a grin. Nadia took it, nodding and smiling a bit. "Thanks." She said.

"Did you guys see me?" Aaron said, rushing into the room. "It was awesome, that rich kid never saw it coming!" He laughed, and then noticed that Nadia was also in the room. "Oh, hey. She a friend of yours?"

"Sort of!" Kimora said. "But yeah, it was amazing! I sure would hate to be that guy. So, what's next on the agenda?"

"Well, looks like you've already gotten to it," Aaron said. "This is the Kaijudo library!"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I don't understand time-zones. All I know is that Russia and California aren't in the same one. At least, I don't think they are. I'm kind of an idiot, in case you can't tell.

* * *

"I just don't get why it didn't work."

"Hector, it's alright."

"No, it isn't! You know I've been trying and perfecting my dueling techniques? How was he able to just-"

"Calm down. It isn't your fault, you just need a bit more training. Not every battle will be won on the first go."

It was after the battle, and after Hector had gotten out of the shell shock of being beaten at his very first duel outside of his master. He just wanted to curl up into a ball and scream, but Rojas was at least attempting to slow this down, if not fully prevent it.

Master Tiera, who had witnessed the entire battle, did not seem to care, and was busy setting out targets in the middle of the coliseum. Once she'd gotten three set up, she walked over to Rojas, who was busy telling Hector that there would be other battles to win.

"Of course, you won't get far with ol' Tokori there," Tiera loudly interrupted as both Rojas and Hector looked over at her.

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Rojas asked, putting a hand on her hip and glaring.

"Because I have seen a lot of duelists, and I know a thing or two about which technique goes with which creature." She said, playfully poking Rojas' nose. Shew then turned to Hector. "Hector. Have you ever heard of Kenina?"

"Sure I have," He said. "She was a messenger in the 7 year Badlands Dispute."

"Ah! She was more than just a simple messenger!" Tiera said, her eyes lighting up. "She singlehandedly delivered supplies and parts for different creatures to use, held her own against an Armored Dragon twelve times her size, and even delivered the final peace agreements through a steady stream of cannon-fire." She chuckled at the irony of the last sentence, and then activated her gauntlet and walked towards the targets she'd set up.

"Now, do just as I do." She performed a Fire summon kata, careful to slow it down in order for him to see the proper steps. "And call her name: Kenina, the Igniter." She then went back to Rojas' side to observe.

Hector took a deep breath, and then proceeded to do the summon kata as she had shown him, and loudly cried "Kenina, the Igniter!" A small fire bird burst forth from the portal, singing a merry tune as sparks flew from her wings. Hector was awestruck, Tiera was smirking, and Rojas was a bit annoyed.

"Are you trying to prove something?" She harshly whispered to Tiera.

"Only that you've been grossly underestimating your own pupil," she whispered right back. She then called out to Hector. "Now, hit the targets!"

Hector extended his arm, and Kenina obeyed. She zipped and glided through the air, blasting each target with ease and a great show of fiery grandeur. The three targets all were blasted into charcoal within minutes, and she ended his display with a burst of bright red fireworks. Hector was amazed to say the least.

"…This proves nothing." Rojas muttered bitterly.

"It proves everything, Miss Rojas," Tiera said, watching as Hector sent Kenina back. "It proves everything."

* * *

As Tiera's demonstration was occurring, Aaron was busy collecting tablets from the library. Nadia sat at a table, busy looking over the one she'd just gotten, and Kimora was holding a ladder that Aaron was precariously perched upon.

"Now then, these tablets have got everything that everybody needs to know about dueling," Aaron said, picking up a few Nature tablets. "Just gotta take one glance at them, and chances are you're set."

"Chances are?" Kimora asked, looking up at him with a puzzled expression. "If I want to impress these masters, I think I'll need more than just chance."

"You know what I mean," Aaron said, sliding down the ladder, with five tablets under his arm. "It's not really that hard, all you need to do is just know how to summon something, and they'll let you in. Easy!"

They walked over to the table where Nadia was sitting, and Aaron slammed the tablets down on the table. He laid them all out, side-by-side, in a way to display what they all looked like, and which civilization they came from.

"This one is a fire creature, a Burn Belly," He said, pointing to a red tablet. "They're pretty common, not too strong, but they still pack a punch." The next one he pointed to was a brown one. "A nature creature, Mighty Shouter, probably a little too overkill in your case."

He pointed to the next one, one in bright gold. "Angel command, some of the… aw jeez. Forgot to get a water tablet." He said, noting that there were two purple tablets. He noticed Nadia, staring off into space, with a blue tablet in front of her. "Hey," He said, tapping her on the shoulder. "Mind if I?"

She nodded, still caught up in her thoughts. She felt like she was forgetting something extremely important, but she just couldn't place her finger on it. He smiled, and scooted the tablet over to the pile with the other five. "Awesome, thanks! Okay this one is… Rusalka. Hey, nice choice! Anyways, she's a trench hunter, so I'll write her down as a definite maybe."

Rusalka. The name sounded familiar, from a storybook her mother used to read to her when-

Her mother.

Oh god.

She was going to be late for breakfast! She'd completely lost track of the time! Her mother would be worried sick and her father furious if she didn't get a move on right now. Nadia made a silent vow to return at a time when she would be in less hot water.

She got up from the table, and immediately rushed out of the place, almost bumping into a tall man with a bright blue robe. He acknowledged her briefly, and watched her run off and away back down the hall with the way lines.

"That's one way to evade your studies," the man said sarcastically. "I assume she's with you?"

"Hey, Master August!" Aaron said, waving to him. "And, uh, yeah. She's probably just off to get her gauntlet." Kimora froze up at the sight of August, a little bit stage-frightened already. He wildly scrambled to grab a tablet, in order to look like knew what he was doing. Aaron noticed this, and slowly inserted a darkness tablet into his grasping hands.

"Just studying a bit, sir!" Kimora said, chipper as he could muster. "With this… Skull…Cutter…" He cleared his throat. "Uh, quick question. It's not really that important, but I'd like to clear it up with you first."

"Go on right ahead. I don't assume that Argus is going anywhere anytime soon," He said.

"Well, not like I'd know, or that I'd really care," Kimora began, tripping all over his words. "But, say that an aspiring acolyte fails their exam, err, what exactly happens? What if I- I mean, if they lose?"

"Simple," August said. "Don't lose." A stalker-sphere suddenly rushed into the room, snapping open and whirring loudly. He nodded, and the creature buzzed out of the room. "If you have no other questions, I must be going." And with that, Master August walked out while Kimora and Aaron stared, wondering what had just happened.

"But what if I do lose?!" Kimora called after him.

* * *

Kimora lay in bed that night, anxious as ever. Sure, he'd gotten a practice gauntlet from Toji, and he'd learned summon katas with some ample encouragement from his best friend, but the uncertainty of his own dueling abilities haunted him. There had to be something he could do to impress the Masters.

The realization hit him like a squirrel under the wheels of a Buick. The library's tablets! All he needed to do was look over them for a bit, and he'd be set for life! Of course, he would need a little more study time to get it perfect.

And so, fourteen year old Kimora Benjirou snuck out of his house without waking up his parents or grandmother, and set out in his zebra-print pajamas to execute the greatest heist in his entire young life. Armed with only his backpack and flashlight, he made his way towards the store, which was surprisingly still open at 9 pm. But he ignored this, silently thanking whoever was up there for him not having to pick a lock.

Once he'd made his way into the library, he set down his bag and turned on his flashlight. It was, after all, a library. It's not like they would notice that he borrowed a tablet or two. HE proceeded to take three off the shelf, not really noticing which Civ they belonged to, and placed them in his bag. He continued this for each section, taking a few and putting them in. However, after about a minute or two of this, he heard the sound of footsteps clacking against the stone floor.

He panicked. Had somebody heard him? Was it someone else who hadn't nearly as innocent intentions as himself? Whoever it was, he was going to at least attempt to take them on, one way or another. He put his pack on his back, and held out his flashlight. Another light turned on at this, and he made a running charge towards the light…

And nearly banged into both Nadia and Hector. Hector's gauntlet had been turned on, and he quickly deactivated it when he saw who was in front of him. "It's just you two. I was worried for a second," He quickly did a double take. "Wait, why are you two even here?"

"Better question. Why is it so dark in here?" Nadia asked, crossing her arms.

"Well, you see," Kimora began, with a bit of a sarcastic tone in his voice. "San Campion isn't quite as rich as Los Angeles, so we can't afford to pay to keep it lit up both day and night."

"San Campion? But that is…" Nadia slowly connected the dots, and her eyes widened in horror. "We are in America?!"

"That's what surprises you the most about all this?" Kimora said, gesturing wildly with his flashlight. "That we're in America?"

"Well… it should be impossible! But then, not much of today seems possible either." She hoofed at the ground sheepishly. "I just wanted to come back when it wasn't so early, that is all."

"And I came here to study!" Kimora said, pulling the Nature Tablet out from his bag. "That… doesn't count as cheating, right?" he asked Hector.

"I was coming to do the same thing, actually," Hector said. "But I wasn't going to come and steal them." He added, glaring sharply at Kimora, who blushed and hid his face. "I can see we all came for the same reason. Guess it's one of the coincidences of fate I've heard about. Let's all just go back from where we came and forget this happened."

Nadia nodded, and Kimora proceeded to empty his backpack of all of the tablets he'd 'borrowed' as quietly as he could. Hector and Nadia both headed back for the way lines, and Kimora went out the library and back out through the bookstore.

* * *

In the meantime, a group of Duel Masters were in the war room, unaware of the thwarted theft.

"I'm not always right, you know." Jaha said, her ears still ringing from Brightmore's latest rant. She and Master Takahashi had been on sentry watch with Argus when Brightmore stormed into the war room, with the angry declaration of Nadia's return.

"And you don't think it's strange that she's come back now?" he asked. "Right when we are currently under attack from both the outside and inner workings of our own order!"

"Not everything has some sort of underlying hidden message, Nigel. It could very well be just coincidence." she elbowed Takahashi in the leg and whispered "Help me, won't you?"

Takahashi, who was still observing the screens on Argus, nodded a little and said "Hm. What she said." And went back to looking. Brightmore was unamused as pulled him out of the way to have a better look at the screens himself.

"There have been more and more cases of mauled creatures this past week then what we've seen in the past few months. Even with all of the extra Masters we've called in, none of them seem to know what's up. Either somebody is either trying to send a message, or doing this for their own sick amusement." He said, his eyes narrowing.

Takahashi and Jaha looked at each other, and then he cleared his throat. "Master Brightmore, we've begun to take our own offense to these attacks. In fact, we've been meaning to tell you about it, but I assume you know best…"

Brightmore turned around sharply. "Go on, then. Spit it out!" he said, trying not to sound desperate.

"Well, from an inside source, we've finally found a name for these monsters." Takahashi continued. "They are calling themselves The Injured Order."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Now, I know what you're going to say. "How come Tiera's getting so much screentime?" Well, little Billy, Master Tiera in the show only had four episodes as her true self, the personality of a shiny ornamental glass egg, three different plot twists stuffed into her, and a veritable smorgasbord of conflicting character motivations. "Okay, but why are all your OCs girls?" Uh... *throws down smokebomb*

 _(Speaking of OCs, check at the very end for something special just for you readers)_

* * *

Today was not Master Tiera's day. Her fuse was seconds away from going off, from one little problem.

She had been caught (along with Takahashi) in her civilian clothes when a sudden flash 'natural disaster' occurred, completely annihilating a banking building from the inside out. They both knew it had to be a creature related incident, but were unsure as to how and why it occurred. Takahashi thankfully had his gauntlet on him, but Tiera was more or less stuck with only a 'borrowed' first aid kit and her wits.

She looked around the first floor of the area, scanning for any humans or creatures in danger or otherwise, stepping over debris and holes as she tried to analyze the situation. And that's when she heard sobbing, coming from another room on the floor. She rushed over to the sound, and felt sick to her stomach when she discovered the source.

It was a woman, a few years younger than her, with tears pouring out of her blue eyes, mostly covered by her messy ginger hair. A massive gash had been torn in her right leg, and it was slowly oozing blood as she tried to get her ankle unstuck from the debris. She looked up, nearly hyperventilating and whimpering at Tiera.

"Easy, easy. It's alright," Tiera said, kneeling down. "I'm here to help you, just breathe." She opened up the first-aid kit, and pulled out gauze and antiseptic. The woman attempted to slow her breathing, but mostly what came out was more tears. Tiera could obviously see the fear in her eyes, and tried different tactic. "What's your name?" she asked, in a voice that she couldn't quite tell if it was soothing or condescending.

"Piper," she gasped out. "My name is Piper, I don't know what's going- what's going on, I don't want to die, and I don't want him to die. I just want to go home- home and away from this…" Her heavy breathing and crying sort of faded out with her talking, and Tiera listened intently, as she gently dabbed the wound with antiseptic. "Do you know where he- he is?"

"He's fine, I'm sure of it," Tiera said, not knowing who Piper was talking about as she began to bandage up the wound. A 'borrowed' walkie-talkie on her belt buzzed, obviously from Takahashi. She sighed deeply, and nudged the answer button on a rock, her hands being a bit occupied at the moment. "Takahashi, please say you have something good to tell me."

"I'm afraid that I would be lying," he said. Takahashi had taken the low route, and was currently walking through the basement of the building with Headstrong Wanderer as his tracker. She sniffed the air, and held out a hand in front of him to stop him from moving forward. Takahashi spoke into his walkie-talkie again. "Though, our luck may be starting to change."

"He is here," Headstrong Wanderer said, narrowing her eyes to slits. "And he is terrified. Move with caution, and make no sudden movements." Takahashi nodded, and put his walkie-talkie back on his belt. They both slowly crept to the room with the creature, as scraping and mechanical whirring got louder and louder until the finally beheld a horror show of a creature.

It resembled Guardian Akhal-Teek, a light and nature hybrid that Takahashi had dueled with before on occasion, but it barely looked up to fighting anything now. Its once shiny gold exterior was now mottled and a sickly green tint, and there were electrical cables tied around its legs that it had just barely been able to snap. Its wings and horn were torn to pieces, and bent in horribly wrong angles.

Worst of all, it had a gigantic hole in its chest, exposing wires and its internal organs. The poor thing was completely unable to float anymore, and was stationary on the ground with its chipped hooves and currently smashing its head into a wall, sending shockwaves throughout the building. It temporarily froze from its destruction, sensing that there were living beings behind it.

And then, it turned and charged straight for them. Headstrong Wanderer quickly jumped out of the way, while Takahashi dodged the angry creature. "I thought you told me to make no sudden movements!" he called over to her.

"And I did," she coolly responded. "For I can be brought back if I am torn in two." Guardian Akhal-Teek roared and charged again straight at her, but the cables around its legs tripped it. The creature fell down, skidding to a halt on the ground, gasping for air. Takahashi walked over to it, as Headstrong Wanderer gently calmed the beast down, reassuring it that he would be fine.

Takahashi steadied himself, and then performed a spell kata, proclaiming "Essence of earth, draw forth swift regeneration!" All at once, the spell worked its way into the creature, reviving it and healing all of its injuries, as well as polishing up its armor. The second that the spell had finished, Guardian Akhal-Teek snapped the cord with ease, and lunged straight for the hapless duel master, ready to kill.

And then it stopped, seconds away from gauging out Takahashi's eyeball. It realized that this man and this creature weren't here to harm it, but to rescue it. It floated backwards, and bowed graciously. Takahshi gently smiled and bowed right back.

Of course, the building was on its last legs from being attacked, and quickly began to crumble all around the three of them. Headstrong Wanderer tugged on Takahashi's wrist. "We must leave immediately!" He nodded, and placing his hand on the light creature and banished Headstrong Wanderer before they could be crushed.

Meanwhile, Tiera had finished patching up Piper's leg, and was currently piggybacking her out of the crumbling building. She had just barely gotten out the front door when the entire place folded in on itself, knocking debris and shrapnel everywhere. Tiera cursed under her breath, and quickly ran towards the crowd, shielding her head (and Piper's, by extension) from any shards of glass or rubble.

By the time she'd turned around and helped Piper off her shoulders, the entire place was mothing more than a pile of twisted metal and glass. She felt a weight drop in her stomach, hoping that Takahashi had made it out of there. She turned back around to ask if Piper was alright, but she'd already limped-ran off and found the 'him' she was looking for, a business casual young man with brown hair and bright blue eyes.

The two of them embraced and cried, as Tiera looked a bit further in the distance and saw a veil breach open up and a friendly face come out. She casually made her way through the dozens of people in shock, and over to the side of the building from where Takahashi was hiding behind.

"You alright?" She asked, looking him over a bit. His hair and clothes were covered in the dust and rubble from the building, and he was busy knocking it out of his ears. "Did we find our little problem?"

"Yes and no," He said, as Guardian Akhal-Teek uncloaked itself, its bright green eyes lighting up as he surveyed his surroundings. Tiera gasped, as Takahashi motioned to the creature. "I found them left for dead and helpless, tied up in a basement. This Injured Order knows exactly what they are doing, and we need to find them and snuff them out permanently before this can continue into something much worse."

* * *

Kimora felt absolutely sick to his stomach. Whatever had happened to the building had to be something to do with creatures, he just knew it. Did the masters know about this? He sat down on his bed, putting his gauntlet and a few snacks into his pack, unsure of how to ask them or even what to say when he arrived.

He hopped off his bed and made his way downstairs, where his parents were busy watching the news report about the building. His grandmother, reading the paper, looked up at him with his backpack on. "Dearie, you know that schools been cancelled?" and it was true, the school was only a block or two from the destroyed building.

"Yeah, I know… I'm just… going over to Hawkins' place! Uh, his dad used to work there, so it must be really scary for all of them. Goodbye!" He slammed the door behind himself before his own parents could get a word in. He was really getting fidgety with telling all these lies, but he knew that nobody would believe him even if he did tell the truth.

Aaron was already waiting outside his house for Kimora, eyes wide and frantic as all hell. Kimora had never seen him like this before, and he knew that it was because of one thing. Needless to say, on their way to the dojo, their talks consisted of mostly screaming.

"Oh my god did you see-?"

"Yeah, it was all over the news!"

"I mean, you can't just blame that on, like water damage!"

"Yeah, it had to be-!"

"It's gotta be-!"

"Dude, I'm freaking out."

"You think the masters know?"

"They've gotta!"

They nearly slammed the door of the bookstore behind themselves, bolting down the steps and into the dojo. Once they'd caught their breath, and the shock from the attack had worn off, they looked at each other as an awkward silence rolled in. This was quickly broken when Nadia stormed in, almost out of breath herself.

"Am I late? I hope not, I tried to find a time that was not too early for you, and not too late for…" She trailed off as she saw the looks on their faces. "What is it, did something bad happen?"

Kimora, remembering that Nadia wasn't American, took a deep breath and said "It's a really long story."

* * *

"Master Ezra, it really means a lot to me that you were able to come on such short notice."

"Please. You know I can't turn a blind eye, Rojas!"

In order to help with the duel masters' current issues, Master Rojas had been brought in to help around the temple, while the others were busy investigating what was happening. She knew that she couldn't do it all by herself, so she brought in Master Violet Ezra, a Nature master stationed in Empire City. The two had been acolytes under the same teacher, so Rojas knew that she could be a valuable asset and trusted ally.

Ezra, on the other hand, was unsure about this whole thing. She considered herself to be a more 'studious' duel master, normally only visiting Civilizations and not really dueling much herself. What else could she possibly have to offer to this problem, other than state the obvious? Her feelings of tense anxiety quickly flowed into resignation when she saw Master Jaha waiting at the doorway.

"Master Rojas, good to see you," she said. "And who is this?" she asked, gesturing with her cane.

"Why, Jaha," Master Ezra started. "Don't tell me you've forgotten already. Why, I was one of the duel masters you hand-picked to become part of your little station in this city."

Rojas could sense the barely concealed rage inside of her and gently nudged her, wordlessly signaling for her to calm down. But, no. Ezra continued onwards, her words becoming harsher and her tone becoming more sickly saccharine by the second.

"But, I guess there are better things to think about! After all, you did pass me up for some under-trained little flyboy, and passed over his own uncle for your student. But I can tell there's no bias thee, undoubtedly? Oh! Speaking of which, where is little Kenny?"

Master Jaha was more likely than not about eight seconds away from impaling Ezra with the sharp end of her cane. She was only prevented from doing this when August's voice suddenly rang out as he came into the hallway.

"Ezra! It's been forever since I've seen you, How've you been?" He pulled her into a warm hug. "Well, I assume we can talk about it later. After all, Master Brightmore needs you in the War Room. Oh, and Jaha, you're going to be observing the new acolytes… I'm sure they're already waiting. Come on."

As Rojas, Ezra and August went one way, and Jaha the other, Rojas sighed in relief and whispered "Thank you, Master August."

He winked at her and whispered right back "Frankly, I'm glad I got here before there was a murder scene."

* * *

Hector had already made his way down to the training area, and was busy practicing with Kenina. She seemed to love him, always singing and chirping whenever he smashed a target or when she gave off sparks after every command.

Aaron was pretty interested too, and he walked over to him to get a better look. Hector glared at him for a second, and then turned back to Kenina. "Go away," He said, blasting another target.

"I'm just seeing how you work, don't mind me," Aaron said, watching as Kenina darted around, molting feathers to and fro. He then nudge Hector in the shoulder and said. "Hey, rich kid. You're not doing it right."

"It's Hector," Hector said, yanking his arm away. Kenina responded to this and missed a target by an inch, and gave a rather confused squeak. "And I think I'm doing fine."

"Well, you're doing fine… but if you want to do great, just listen to me." Aaron stood behind Hector, and took his arm, steadying it. "You've gotta keep a firm grip and-"

"Whoa! What are doing?"

"Helping. Now c'mon, hold still and let me do this."

Hector grumbled under his breath, and let Aaron hold onto his arm. Aaron proceeded to gently move it upwards. "Okay, extend your palm a little bit." Hector did as he was told, and saw Kenina react, as she proceeded to move directly towards his hand and stop in front of it, flapping in mid-air.

Aaron let go of his arm. "Okay, now keep it there, and push forwards!"

Hector rolled his eyes, as he did that. "I've been doing that. How is any of it going to change no-"

Kenina proceeded to barrel roll, dart forward and unleash three different fire balls, all three of them hitting bulls-eyes in the center of the targets, without singing the sides. Both boys stood open mouthed and staring, until Aaron laughed. "Oh man, and I thought it was just a rumor! Nice going, rich kid!" He gave him a friendly shove on the shoulder, while Hector still wordlessly stared.

Kimora and Nadia, who were watching the whole thing from the sidelines, were a bit tense, for equal and opposite reasons. Kimora was floored by how much more Aaron and Hector knew, even if they were years more experienced, it still was overwhelming. He was worried sick he wouldn't be good enough with standards like those.

Nadia, on the other hand, didn't even know what a duel master was. All she cared about were the library and the creatures, and she more or less was given a gauntlet by sheer accident when he offhandedly admitted she didn't know where hers was. Battling with these beasts was way out of her comfort zone, and she was too shy to admit it.

Master Jaha seemed to notice their discontent, and appeared from the shadows to give a friendly bit of advice. Of course, not before nearly giving the two heart attacks at her sudden appearance. But, once their heart palpitations had halted, she imparted upon them her wisdom.

"You know, you don't have to make a big show of it all," she said. "If you're meant for this sort of life, you'll know it."

Kimora gulped hard. He knew she was only trying to be helpful, but all it did was make him even more anxious. He tried to hide this, and blurted out without thinking. "Well, in that case, let me show you what I've learned so far!"

He walked over to a more open spot in the area, and activated his gauntlet, but before he could do that, a veil breach crackled open behind him. Kimora slowly turned around, a veritable deer in the headlights upon seeing this monstrosity pound its way out.

It was a massive Rumbling Terrasaur.

* * *

 **Bonus:** Character descriptions! Sorry about Ezra's being more... one note, there's not much I can reveal about her without spoilers.

 **Alexandra Rojas:** Definitely in her older years, probably around Nigel's age in the current Kaijudo timeline. She has long brown hair tied up in a fancy bun, dark brown skin, black eyes, a stocky frame, very angular features, and wears usually only (black)lipstick and mascara. She wears a white ruffled blouse, a dark black knee length skirt, brown stockingsm, black dress shoes, and she has a teardrop-shaped red brooch on her neck.

 **Violet Ezra:** In the physical department... she's literally just Tilda Swinton with long light blue hair. Lack of eyebrows included. She wears a light green and black shine maiden styled robe, and sandals.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Ugh, I keep having to cut my chapters in half. Dammit, this is why we're 5 chapters in and haven't gotten to any of the good parts up until now. NICE GOING, SELF. Bonus points to whoever can guess what the Injured Order's symbol is based of!

* * *

Moments earlier, Masters Ezra, Brightmore, Rojas, August, and Takahashi were in the War Room, going over their plan of action on what to do about the current problem. Brightmore, of course, was doing most of the talking, as per the norm. The rest of them mostly stood around and tried not to fall asleep… err, listen carefully to what he was saying.

"As you know, there have been an increasing amount of attacks on the Creature Realm. More and more half-dead creatures have been popping up just on the borderlines of their civilizations, or they are being summoned with nigh fatal injuries already sustained," he began.

"You do realize that these creatures aren't automatically all on good terms with each other, correct?" Ezra interjected. "This is more likely than not just an inter-civilization war, fueled by passive aggression."

"That," Brightmore continued, with an extremely annoyed tone in his voice. "Is what I originally thought. But, there have been many instances to the contrary." He motioned towards Argus, and a collection of gruesome images of mangled creatures popped up on the screen. Several of them had been branded and scarred with an insignia of an open gauntlet inside of the Order's normal symbol.

Ezra stared, wide eyed and open mouthed. Brightmore nodded, and then said. "The Injured Order, as they are apparently calling themselves, has made it their mission to punish creatures. Earlier this morning, this side received an attack as well. A Skyforce Champion was found by one of our own, half dead and mindlessly smashing into a building. These are not just petty vandals, they know exactly what they're doing."

Rojas, visibly shaken by the images, cleared her throat to gain everyone's attention. "I believe there may be a way to track these before they come. Obviously, they aren't just going straight into the civilizations and harming them, or we would most certainly know."

She walked over closer to Argus, and proceeded to mess around with the screens, programming something into it. "I reckon that we could possibly track the mana signatures, and possibly see where they will release the next one! And maybe, we could find where they are being sent from!"

August walked over to her, cocking an eyebrow quizzically. "I see. And how do you intend to do that without overloading his circuits?" Rojas, too busy with her meddling, ignored him, and proceeded to lock onto the mana signature of a mauled Cyber Scamp. She smiled, and stood back, pleased at her discovery.

He rolled his eyes. "Impressive. You've managed to muddle it up even worse. According to your little 'experiment' or what have you, apparently, the next veil breach is going to happen right he-"

A distant rumbling and crackling of electric energy suddenly grabbed everyone's attention. And then, distant roaring as well as screaming proceeded to confirm Master Rojas' suspicions as well as her horror.

"Oh, now I wish I _had_ muddled it up," she whispered.

* * *

Back in the present, Kimora, Nadia and Hawkins had all taken cover behind an overturned table, as Masters Tiera and Jaha attempted to calm down the beast, with some help from the older adepts and Toji. They were not, however, doing very well. The Rumbling Terrasaur's horn had been sliced down the middle, and had a massive chuck missing from the center, causing excess mana to flow from its horn and basically create its own shields.

Despite all this, the duelists were trying their best to try and corral the beast, as it was already severely injured and scarred, no doubt from the Injured Order's attacks. But, with every attempt to coax, the monster just kept coming and charging, trampling and slicing the creatures back to their realms. It was all very annoying, considering the creature that they were fighting was no more than an over-glorified cow with a Ginsu knife on its nose.

"I didn't do this!" Kimora screamed, covering his head from behind the table. "I was gonna try summoning that Jazuri… thing, and then HE showed up!"

"I don't blame you, dude. That Terrasaur came in straight outta nowhere," Aaron said, looking up over the table to see if it was safe for the Nadia and the two of them to come out. It wasn't, obviously, but he needed a better vantage point just to see what was happening. "Gotta admit, though. That rich kid's braver than I am."

And, indeed, Hector was facing down the creature eighty-five times his size, with Kenina blasting away rapidly. She wasn't trying to harm it, but the fiery blasts would keep it scared from crashing into anything else important. The three kids all peeked over the table just to get a good look at him.

"Brave, maybe. Foolish, yes, definitely!" Nadia said bluntly, ducking back down behind the table.

"He's gonna get himself killed!" Kimora gasped. He turned to Aaron. "Shouldn't we something?"

"You guys shouldn't do anything!" Aaron said, activating his gauntlet. "I'm going to protect you two!" And with that, he jumped out from behind the table, and charged straight into the heat of battle. "Skull Cutter!"

As Kimora watched his friend go off, he sighed and sat back down behind the table. He couldn't just sit here and do nothing! He felt like this was his responsibility, and he should at least attempt to fix it. He nudged Nadia on the shoulder, and she looked up at him with an almost exasperated terror.

"Okay, uh. Did you see the Terrasaur?" he started. "I mean, of course you did, but, uh. Its horn has been cracked. So, what we've got to do is plug up the hole, and then we can send him back. You think you can do that?"

Nadia thought about it for a second. "No," she said. "But I think I can do something else. I can create a distraction, and then you can do that."

"It doesn't really matter which one of us does it," Kimora said, rolling his eyes. "Just take care of the monster!" She nodded, and then slowly raised her gauntlet up to her face, taking a deep breath and activating it. Kimora grinned, and the two burst forth from the table to join their friends.

* * *

Blackfeather was finally on her last legs from the seemingly invincible Rumbling Terrasaur. Meteor Dragon wasn't faring too well either, and getting more and more tired as his blasts only bounced off the instant shield. It was embarrassing as all hell, considering it had also taken out five other creatures.

But that didn't stop Hector and Aaron from trying their best with their much smaller creatures. Skullcutter darted around the creature's legs, distracting it from the larger ones, and bringing it closer to the two of them. Kenina proceeded to fly around and flash her golden-red feathers at it, blinding and confusing it temporarily.

Unfortunately, this ended up working too well, and the Terasuar literally was incapable of seeing where it was going, and it charged straight for Kenina with its massive horn. Hector panicked, and without thinking, he grabbed Kenina out of harm's way. The Fire Bird panicked, and she exploded in his face and hands, blasting him back and her out of his hands.

"Hector!" Aaron yelled, and he rushed over to see if he was alright. Hector kept his eyes shut tight, for there were tiny little embers forming around his eyes that still burned bright red. Kimora and Nadia, who'd both made their way over to the main event, could only stare in abject horror at what they'd just seen. The Rumbling Terrasaur then turned to them, scuffing its foot down.

"Well, looks like it's good a time if any to be a hero," he said, taking a defensive stance. Now then, what to summon? Not Skull Cutter, he's already here, Mighty shouter was too powerful and might crush him. Then, the thought hit him, what better way to plug up a hole than with a giant spider's silk?

"Humonculon, the Blaster!" He called triumphantly as he performed his summon kata. And out of the portal came a spider. A very tiny spider, around the size of a tangerine, with one green eye and four tiny legs. It looked up at him, a bit confused as to who it was summoning it. "Figures," he mumbled, gently face palming.

Nadia herself wasn't sure of what she was even supposed to do at this point, other than just summon her creature, and hope everything worked fine. "Aqua Chaser Rusalka!" She said, as she performed her summon kata. And out came a very large sea monster levitating in midair, staring straight at her with unblinking yellow eyes. Nadia yelped in shock and fell down in fright.

The Terrasaur charged, and Kimora quickly put up his shield. The two then bounced off each other, and Kimora was knocked backwards, and the Terrasaur was a bit frightened at the sudden power balance. Blackfeather and Meteor Dragon attempted to help, but with one slash, they were both banished away.

Speaking of frightened, Nadia was still in awe from the creature she'd just summoned. It coiled around her, examining her every detail. And the, Nadia heard a voice in her head, calmly talking to her in her native language.

{Be not afraid.}

{What. What's happening, what are…?}

{I am conversing with you mentally. This is a language you are more comfortable with hearing, yes?}

{Yes, but. Well, I know I shouldn't question these sorts of things. I am in the middle of something, though.}

The Rumbling Terrasaur, although currently distracted, was still angry and scared as ever, and Rusalka could feel it. She gave a quick glance at it, and straightened herself out. Nadia stood up shakily, noticing Aaron was still over Hector, and Kimora was rushing to his side as well with a tiny golden spider in tow.

{Just leave it to me. I am at your disposal.}

* * *

"Is he dead?!" Kimora asked, looking over Hector worriedly. Hector, possibly fueled out of annoyance by this question, stood up and blindly smacked a hand on Kimora's shoulder. "Not yet," he said, struggling up to his feet.

"Okay, good!" Kimora said, quickly changing the conversation to avoid any more awkwardness. "I'm gonna need you two to help me distract that thing so that Nadia and I can put it down, alright?"

Aaron, who was helping Hector up nodded, but stage-whispered over to his friend "I don't think he'll be able to do much of anything, but I think I've got ya covered." Once Hector was firmly on his own two feet, Aaron stepped forward with Kimora and brought Skull Cutter closer to him. Skull Cutter bowed in his presence, and was then launched back into the fray with a gentle gesture.

And the bait was snatched up with ease, if maybe at little too well. The creature charged straight at them, flattening Skull Cutter and turning towards the three, until a sudden blast of fire-works spooked it into tripping and skidding to a halt only three feet away from them.

Aaron and Kimora looked behind themselves to see that Hector's eyes were bright red, wide open, and his palm was outstretched before him. "Care to repeat that?" he asked smugly.

Before the creature could stir, Nadia's voice called out "Rusalka! Lull him asleep!" Rusalka released an energy beam from her forehead, and the Rumbling Terrasaur's eyes finally slammed shut. Kimora then commanded Humonculon to very gently cover up the hole with his webs, and the little creature was more than delighted to.

Tiera, Toji, and Jaha watched the four of them revel in their victory. "And you're sure there's absolutely nothing we could have done to help?" Toji asked.

"Oh, we could have helped any time," Master Jaha said. "I just wanted to see how far it would go."

* * *

After the creature had been healed, as well as Hector's eyes and hands, Nadia and Kimora waited in the Library for what the Masters would say. Sure, they'd done pretty well, even if it was in a rather unorthodox way, but that didn't help their heart rates much.

"We were awesome out there!" Aaron said, seating himself right next to Kimora. "And to think, we did all of that without the Masters' help!"

"Well, they helped a little bit, but yeah. It was the coolest thing I've ever done!" He turned to Nadia. "And what'd you think of it?"

"It was alright," she said, not really looking up from the table's surface.

"Just alright?" Kimora asked. "I mean, come on! You used a giant psychic fish monster to stop another one from tearing us to bits, and all you can say is that it was alright?"

"I don't know," she said, raising her voice a little bit. "I didn't even want to fight. All I'm interested in is these tablets. Is there a sort of duel master that doesn't duel much?"

"You mean like Toji?" Aaron asked. Nadia eyes lit up, and she nodded furiously. "Yeah, I… don't think you're old enough for that yet."

She placed her head on the table and sighed. "You two have been very nice to me, and I don't even think we know each other's names! I just don't know if I'm cut out for this like you are."

Kimora smiled gently. "You never know until you try. Oh, and, uh. I'm Kimora. That's Aaron." She lifted her head up off the table, and looked at him, half-smiling back. "I'm Nadia." She said. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and looked up to see Ezra. She motioned towards the exit. "You two are needed by the masters."

Kimora and Nadia made their way to where the duel masters all sat around a massive table, at chairs with each of their respective civilizations emblazoned above them. Masters Rojas and Ezra stood at opposite ends of the table, their expressions stoic and straightforward serious. Master Takahashi was the first to speak.

"Acolytes. The both of you have shown incredible bravery, quick thinking, and teamwork in the few days that you have been here. I commend you for that, even if it was bit… odd in how you accomplished it. IT was been the unanimous decision of the Council to induct you both into the Order. Now, present your gauntlets."

All five of the duel masters rose, and Nadia and Kimora held out their gauntlets. With a quick blast of mana, and a bright flash of light later, the two had their gauntlets upgraded. Nadia's was dark blue like the ocean, with light blue accents. Kimora's was light green, like a healthy meadow, with dark green accents.

Of course, they weren't they only ones that had their gauntlets change. In the medical bay, Hector's eyes had just readjusted, and he saw that his once orange gauntlet was now a bright red, with only orange accents of its former self. Oh, things were changing alright, but none could be sure if they were for the better or worse.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Wow, I can't believe I haven't updated this fic in a whole YEAR... ah, I can't make that joke this late in January. Anyways, here's where things really start to go off. Prepare yourself for a cavalcade of call-forwards and foreshadowing that'll make you cry when I finally square this one away. But that won't be for a while, so feel free to theorize!

* * *

Three days had passed since the previous attack on the temple, and Master Tiera was busy preparing herself for the day ahead of her. She made her way down the steps and towards her own personal spot in the dojo, a training ground and meditation center in the middle of a molten lake of lava. But, when she arrived there already was somebody fast at meditating already there, his gauntlet activated and gently bubbling mana.

"Acolyte Chavez?"

He gasped and fell from his position, blushing bright red. Looking back around, he noticed the duel master, and took a few deep breaths before finally settling down his heart rate, and getting up to look her in the eyes from a higher viewpoint. She chuckled a bit at his attempts to make himself look braver, and then continued.

"I do appreciate that you're learning to channel your frustrations and whatnot, but don't you have a place of your own to do this? Not that I mind, but I'd prefer a heads up."

"I was waiting for you to come, actually!" Hector said. "I've been thinking about what you've said, and what I've seen, and I was wondering if maybe you could teach me a little bit more about the Fire Civilization? I just want to see it before I know what I think I should do… duel-wise?" His sentence wavered off a bit at the end, but Tiera understood the message.

"And has your Sensei agreed to this little field trip?" She asked, crossing her arms.

"It's Saturday, I don't really have much else to do…" He responded, kicking his feet and looking at the ground. "And I think she'd allow it if I used one of her creatures as a sort of stand-in."

Tiera rolled her eyes. "Alright then. I don't suppose that the other Masters would mind, considering we've already got enough Injured Order attack reports from Blastforge City." Hector's eyes widened in anticipation. He'd heard about the Fire Capital, but he'd never gotten to see it up close himself. "Just stay right by my side, and everything should go swimmingly."

* * *

What they didn't know was that there was another little 'field trip' happening today. Master Ezra, along with Kimora and Nadia, had been called into the Nature Civilization to try and settle a dispute between the Bronze-Arm Tribe and the Wild Veggies. The last thing that anyone needed was another fight, especially considering the amount of tensions rising between humans and creatures.

Kimora and Nadia weren't meant to come originally, but Nadia herself admitted to knowing the least about the Nature Civilization, and wished to know more than just what she had read from the library. Kimora on the other hand, showing great amounts of care and skills at controlling Nature thought that he could better perfect his abilities with a more direct approach. After quite a bit of begging, Ezra agreed and secretly allowed them to tag along.

"But a fight between the Bronze-Arm tribe and the Wild Veggies? It doesn't make any sense! Both of these tribes only ever fight out of self-defense!" Nadia was already making quick mental notes of the situation. "It doesn't make sense for wither one to attack either of the other."

"Could just be a huge misunderstanding!" Kimora said, trying to lighten the mood as they walked further and further into the thick underbrush of the forest. Master Ezra herself stayed quiet, only nodding at every two or three sentences absent-mindedly. Using her partner creature Mistvine Quartz, to guide them, she suddenly held out a hand in front of them as he began to sniff the air. His glowing white eyes flashed red as he hooted in alarm, and Nadia and Kimora took his as a sign to activate their own gauntlets.

And thus, the once peaceful forest was sent into chaos with a massive brawl suddenly emerging from above and around the trees. Beastkin and Wild Veggies alike both were going at each other, their swords and spears clashing loudly as they tumbled around the woods, trying to get a better stab (pun intentional) at each other.

Nadia and Kimora, without a moment's notice to prepare themselves hit the deck, covering their heads from any spearheads or cherry bombs. The entire fight was a chaotic mess, not incomparable to a herd of colts being unleashed into a salad bar buffet. Master Ezra, however, seemed to be handling it well, using Quartz to beat down and distract the battles from getting too intense.

But, this didn't last for long, as a misfire from a Veggie's weapon caused her feet to be glued to the ground, and Mistvine Quartz was skewered to a tree and trampled in the pandemonium. The two acolytes, now trench crawling away from the battle noticed this and began to internally panic. But, Nadia saw something suspiciously dart away in the corner of her eye, and turned to Kimora.

"All right, new plan. You save Master Ezra. I'll see what exactly why there's a sudden retreat." she said, getting up off the ground and darting off before Kimora could ask what exactly she meant by that, or how exactly he was supposed to accomplish this 'rescue' mission.

Nadia chased after the creature that had darted off from the battle and into the bushes as well as she could. She finally caught up to it as I stopped at a stream to take a drink. Peering from behind a tree, she glanced over the creature. It was a small faerie-like creature, with an Apple-shaped head and a small twiggy body. It held a tiny rapier on its belt, and wore a one-suited pitch black suit with boots.

A wild veggie abandoning its kind was rare enough, but the fact that it was seeming leaving its own kind to be tossed and diced was almost too weird to be true. Nadia was about to confront it, but a loud voice behind her prevented her from moving any forward. "Down with you! Do not dare hurt my sister in arms!" She immediately fell asleep after declaration, and the Veggie she was watching suddenly looked behind her.

Tricky Turnip picked up the girl in her leafy arms with a grin. "This rotten girl won't be picking on anybody that's not her size anymore, Bad Apple!" Bad Apple rolled her eyes, but was pleased to know that her little diversion trap had worked. Quickly, she darted back to the scene of the fight and whistled sharply to her fellow flora. "Retreat! WE have what we came for!"

The veggies dissipated into the brush as the bronze-arm tribesmen could only wonder what they meant by that. Kimora, who had dodged and weaved his way around the brawl, was now currently attending to peeling the sap off of Master Ezra with his gauntlet. A quick zap of mana freed her, and she got back up to her full height, stretching her legs a bit.

"Thank you, Kimora. I know this isn't exactly what you were expecting from your first first to the Nature Civilization, but things tend…" She started, but her voice quickly trailed off as she looked around the scene. "Wait a moment. Where is Nadia?"

* * *

Master Tiera and Chavez, after a good mile of walking, had reached the gates of the city. With a few kindly placed words (and secret bribes), they journeyed on through to the bustling square filled to the brim with Fire creatures of all sorts. The creature had Chavez had summoned as a 'stand-in' was Rojas' own personal partner creature, Cyber Lord Wakiki, who was currently advising him and pointing out several landmarks in great detail.

"Blastforge city was allegedly formed from the remnants of a massive Armored Dragon, one that was rumored to have been Lord Inferno's personal captain of the guard in the Great Kaiju War. From his skull came the castle, his wings the walls, and his organs made the ground rocky and coarse. Obviously, these claims come from an extremely flimsy and overall unrealistic fable, so they should not be taken with the slightest bit of reality in mind."

"Dear Lord," Master Tiera said, nudging the Water Creature. "I think you'd find it best to quit while you're ahead. Needless to say, the locals wouldn't appreciate you calling their beliefs fake."

Wakiki cocked an eyebrow, but she nodded and quickly changed the subject. "It's for the best, anyways. Young Chavez doesn't even seem to be paying attention." The acolyte was currently too busy absorbing in the architecture and examining every creature he could, trying to see which one was meant for him.

And then Tiera bumped into a rather large Drakon with bright green scales. Lord Skycrusher, who was most certainly pissed, for reasons beyond and possibly towards the aforementioned minor collision. HE growled and looked down at her as he pried on of her sleeves out of the cracks in his golden chest plate armor.

"I assume you have an answer for me!" He bellowed in his usual ear ringing tone. "At the very least, you could give me an excuse as to why you fleshy meat sacks have been whisking away my guards just to use them as punching bags!"

Master Tiera gave a very deep, very annoyed sigh. "We've already told you everything we know. It's only been a few days, just calm do-"

"Do not tell Lord Skycrusher to calm down! I am perfectly fine!" He screeched angrily. "Have you only come here to give me half-baked apologies, or are you actually planning on doing something constructive with your miserable life?!"

"Sir," Tiera continued, barely holding back her own rage. "I am only here with my own young ward to observe-!"

"What young ward?!" The Drakkon leader questioned, pointing behind Tiera. Tiera turned around and saw that where there once was a teenage boy and a water creature, there remained virtually nothing but ashen footprints leading to somewhere far away. She cursed under her breath, and ran in the direction where the prints were going, Skycrusher condescendingly following at a leisurely pace.

Hector and Wakiki were currently gazing over an arena, with a great display going on down below on its rocky floors. A bright red Drakkon, was blasting targets with massive agility and speed. His arm guards, covered in razor-sharp blades scraped the ground and caught fire to the dust as he sped. After punching and kicking the rest of the targets to shreds, he then knelt to the ground in front of a slightly larger and much more grizzled looking fellow Drakkon, who nodded knowingly.

"Hector!" Tiera gasped, as she finally caught up to them, with Skycrusher in tow. She grabbed Hector by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. "You- you were supposed to stay by me, remember?" She then turned to the Cyber Lord, who until this moment, had been describing exactly how fast the creature was going, and listing off all his possible skills and weaknesses. "Oh, and _thank you very much_ for looking after him, Wakiki." She added sarcastically.

Skycrusher scoffed. "Like you could doubt a Water Creature to care more about itself and 'knowledge' than to be bothered with another life! Gilaflame down there would be a better caretaker than whatever mistake of a Cyber Lord this one is!"

While Tiera was attempting to prevent the two opposing creatures from pummeling each other, Hector looked back down at the arena. Gilaflame, as he'd now been named, was apparently preparing himself to duel again with a pair of robotic stompers. Of course, his attention was averted back to Tiera, as she dragged him back along with her and Skycrusher to discuss 'politics' back at his castle.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Lalala~ breaking up my chapters in half again! Also, I got some kickass fanart of my version of Kimora by tumblr user 2dcandaceflynn, I can't link to the blog directly because of spam warnings, but just google search the blog title or whatever.

* * *

"You just let her run off?"

"She seemed like she knew what she was doing!"

Kimora was in hot water. Possibly less so than Nadia, but the boiling hot sensation only seemed to rise with every single stinging word that Ezra shouted. I mean, it wasn't like he'd tried to get them separated, it had just happened! But, the Nature Specialist barely let him get a word in out of her own rage-induced paranoia.

"In case you weren't fully aware, this not a cutesy little sightseeing vacation! This was supposed to be a serious diplomatic meeting, and you've gone and lost one of our own! You should have known better. Ugh, even I should have known better, never should've let you come…"

The Bronze-Arm Tribesmen seemed just as concerned for the loss of the child, even if they didn't quite understand what exactly was going on with anything, really. Then, they stood aside as a dull thudding of feet and rustling of trees made itself more apparent. And from the bushes emerged a creature made of of wooden totems and a green humanoid elephant with massive sheared off tusks.

Kimora recognized these two as Chief Thorn-Bringer and Mighty Shouter respectively. Out of an almost assumed obligation, he knelt down in reverence, while Ezra stared at this action with amused confusion. Mighty Shouter glanced over the two and snorted, unamused. Chief Thorn-Bringer moved a bit closer to examine both of them.

"Outlandishly clothed Snow Sprites," He started. "You are both miles, leagues, vast passages away from your land of origin. What brings the two of you here in our wood, if not to arrive unwelcomed?"

Master Ezra, not one to argue at the current time, cleared her throat and said "We were hoping to find a sort of common grounds between you and the Wild Veggies. It pains our hearts to see you both in such strife, and we were wondering if there was anything we could do to help you, if not end this senseless conflict." She nudged Kimora, obviously motioning him to get back up, which he quickly proceeded to.

"What you wish to end is not a major concern," The Chief said. "It is merely the claims of a dark order that is plaguing their kind as well as ours, and they believe that they can catch these dark beings, by apparently trespassing on our lands. But we know better, that it is our enemies from the fire and Darkness realms that are playing a violent sport."

"Either way, you do realize that there are still these little disputes playing out?" She said, gesturing all around herself. "Please, let us come with you to the Wild Veggie's settlement. We can all explain our mutual problems there."

Chief Thorn-Bringer scratched below where a normal being's chin should be. "Very well. Mighty Shouter and I will be the only ones to accompany you, however. I do not trust that they will act so kindly towards the ones that they so violently assaulted."

And thus, the elephant, the talking mask, and the two 'snow sprites' proceeded on another bout of walking. Granted, this time wasn't nearly as long as the previous romp, but it still bears some repeating that it wasn't exactly seven minutes from forest. And all at once, thing started to click into place when Kimora saw a very familiar face smack dab in the middle of the Veggie Village.

"Nadia!"

"Kimora!" Nadia yelled back. She'd been placed in a wicker cage that was almost too small to fit her when she was standing up, and suspended from a tree, dangling slightly from a small breeze and her own violent shaking of the bars. Kimora rushed towards the cage, but was stopped by Bad Apple and a rather dapper looking scallion.

"Not another step, my boy! The scallion cried, brandishing his leek broadsword in front of him. "What you see before you is an extremely dangerous criminal. Avert your eyes at once before her devilish gaze bewitches you!"

"Alright, what is the meaning of this?!" Ezra shouted, pointing at the current possible starting of an altercation. "That girl right there is my student!"

"Oh, ho, is she?" Bad Apple asked, coking a fruity eyebrow. "Then explain to me why she fell for my little test of character? Stalking an innocent fruit while her guard was down, tsk-tsk." Bad Apple's own rapier was drawn, and she stabbed in Ezra and Kimora's direction a few times.

"See, I knew this was a big misunderstanding!" Kimora said, looking between the veggies and an extremely annoyed Nadia, who was giving him a look that warned him not to make 'I told you so' lines at the current time. "She's not part of the Injured Order, she's just my friend! Look, I'm sure we'll laugh this off-"

"There will be no laughter!" screeched the Scallion. "There wasn't been. Not since p-poor Warrior Melon was… c-cubed…" He took of his hat and sobbed loudly into it. He plopped his hat back onto his head, still sniffling away his tears. "And I, The Great Rapscallion, will not have a single one more of my brothers or sisters to fall by the likes of this Order."

Ezra had had just about enough of this nonsense, and it seemed the Chief wasn't too wild about it either. "We have lost some of our own," he said, stabbing his spear into the ground. "But we have not acted out in trespassing or in violence as you have, have we?"

"Which is why we're here to help!" Ezra added. "I, specifically, wish to speak to your leader. Field Marshall Cornucopia, is it?"

"Yes, indeed!" A booming voice bellowed forth. Out of a rather large carved out tree emerged a man made purely out of sown flaxen seed, with eyes, bracelets, and a belt resembling emerald orbs. His body had his kind's symbols carved into the front and back, and he wore a long cape made of underbrush. "What do you wish of me?" He asked in an almost cartoonish way.

Ezra sighed deeply and mumbled something about it going to be a very long peace talk ahead of her. He walked into the carved tree, the two wild veggies and the Chief following suit while Shouter remained with the children. And before Bad Apple entered, she whistled towards a robotic looking veggie, and motioned for him to stay put in front on Nadia's cage with a quick nod.

Kimora sighed deeply, hating to be left out of things again, but it wasn't like he had a choice. He walked up towards the cage and put his hand on the bars, awkwardly attempting to show a sort of solidarity or empathy for her. She mostly understood what he was getting at, and also awkwardly placed her hand on the same bars as his.

"I'm gonna get you out of here, don't you worry," he whispered. "I'll prove your innocence."

"I'm sorry, what?" She whispered back. "How are you going to do that? I don't exactly think you can just magically find a member of the Order strolling down the street."

"Maybe not," He said with a grin. "But I can find one of their creatures! They'll be sure to listen to their own kind!" He walked from the cage, and to Mighty Shouter's side, straining as he attempted to climb up him. Mildly concerned, Mighty Shouter lifted the boy up onto one hand, still a bit unsure of what exactly he was trying to accomplish. Kimora then climbed across his arm and onto the creature's left shoulder.

"Just stay calm!" He said, knowing that he was probably the one that needed that advice more than her. "We're taking this creep to justice, and we're clearing your name! Alright, Shouter, let's find some ne'er do wells!"

Shouter internally shrugged and then trekked onwards. If anything, he would discover what was hurting his fellow beastkin, ad this tiny creature obviously had his heart in the right place. Kimora then looked back at the rapidly disappearing Nadia.

"You'll be free, I'll tell ya! Free!" He shouted, before the pair went back into the deep woods in search of evil.

* * *

Half an hour had passed since Kimora's little declaration. Nadia sat in the wicker cage, gazing at the ground, bored out of her mind. She didn't have time for waiting, she needed to help Kimora before he got himself hurt. But, there didn't seem to be any conveniently sharp objects around herself, or any loose links in the cage's bars.

But, there was one other possible escape attempt that still hung in the air, much like her cage. Her guard was the heroic Lotus Warrior, a machine originally created as a form of 'Trojan Horse' from the Fire Civilization that ended up defecting to the veggie's side in a great stroke of irony. His rockets could easily shatter the cage asunder, and all she needed was the proper motivation. Clearing her throat to get his attention, she smiled gently.

"Brave warrior, I've heard of your amazing fighting abilities!" She schmoozed in a saccharine tone. "What with your expert… kicking and punching, as well as your rocket power. You should be very proud of yourself for being so talented." She punctuated the last word with a sweet wink.

The robot sheepishly covered its metallic face, possibly blushing underneath all the metal obscuring his face. His petal-like metal wings flapped a bit in bashfulness. Nadia got up from her position, and rose up onto her knees, fully intending on milking this flower for all it was worth.

"Especially your rockets, err… I'd love to see them work. Is it true they can fell a mighty oak tree?" The robot, eager to show off, brandished its turrets and knocked down a tree a few meters off in the distance. "What about disrupt a pond?" Another rocket, a bit faster than the other, quickly jettisoned straight into a pond, causing a massive splash and disputing a few smaller water creatures.

"What about wicker?" Nadia asked, quickly reading her gauntlet to shield. Lotus Warrior did not yield as he aimed and fired a rocket directly at the top of the cage, causing it to come crashing to the ground. Nadia, still a bit shaken from the shield's recoil, stepped gingerly out of the crumbled remnants of the cage.

"Thank you very much for your demonstration, sir!" She curtseyed in front of the bot, and it bowed back in polite reverence. And then she was off, bounding off in the direction that Kimora and Mighty shouter had traveled, careful to summon Rusalka only when she was sure she was out of view from the settlement.

Meanwhile, Bad Apple had crawled out of the main tree to get a breather from all the intensely boring political 'action' that she had to sit through. And what a shock it was when her assumed suspect was nowhere to be in sight, and a destroyed trap with a certain Lotus Warrior's name written all over it.

"You fool! You don't know what you've done!" She yelled, scrambling like a squirrel all around the wreckage and onto the robot in a frenzied rage. "What do you have to say for yourself?!" A low pitched buzz caused her to roll her eyes and claim "Well, maybe you'd get more compliments if you didn't let our prisoners get away!"

* * *

Kimora sat atop Mighty Shouter, surveying the view of the entire civilization from a much less tiring vantage point. Plus, there was the added addition of having a massive powerhouse of a creature right there when you needed him. As soon as he got a little better with dueling, him and this guy were gonna be thick as thieves, he just knew it.

And then Mighty Shouter abruptly stopped, nearly tossing Kimora off his shoulders. The boy kept a strong grip and then asked "Did you see something?" Shouter did not speak, but pointed towards a cluster of bushes in the distance which appeared to be shaking violently. A very low and soft whimpering could just barely be heard from where Kimora sat. He carefully climbed down and off of Shouter, lighting up his gauntlet as a quick precaution.

Pushing aside the bushes, Kimora found a Fear Fang, in worse shape than usual. Massive patches of its fur were torn out, and a good bit of its teeth had been pulled from its mouth, which oozed a thin trickle of blood. Massive wounds across its upper chest and legs were also visible, though dry. Kimora gasped and gently knelt down next to it, casting a basic healing spell as it growled passively.

"No, no, no! Calm down, shh. I'm not hurting you." Kimora said, trying not to scare it. He tried petting it, but the obvious recoil from him getting his other hand near it proved otherwise. Kimora was so focused in making sure this creature would heal properly, and making sure his spell was steady that he didn't even see someone else come out of the bushes and stand right before him.

But, he was made fully aware of this when the man grabbed him by the collar and yanked him away from the creature. Kimora tried to scream, but it died somewhere in his throat and came out as a squeak. The man himself was a spindly little creep of a man, tall and tan and dark haired, with an extremely angered expression as he glared at Kimora right between the eyes.

"I knew someone was following me," he sneered. "I didn't expect it to be a fat little prick without any adult supervision, though." Kimora tried to think up a retort, but nothing really was coming to mind except screaming for help, and he couldn't even muster that so far, only tears and heavy breathing. "Shut up, this'll be over quick," The man said, opening up a switchblade.

And then Mighty Shouter trumpeted, knocking Kimora out of the man's hands, blowing the man away, and causing the Fear Fang to look up in hope and shock. Shouter had apparently been wondering what was taking so long, and had stumbled across the attempted stabbing. Kimora, quietly thanking his lucky stars, scrambled behind the massive elephants leg, while he picked up the Fear Fang with a sad expression. The sad expression quickly turned to hate, as he looked down into the man's eyes, which widened in terror.

The man ran out of the forest, presumably wishing to avoid getting flattened like a pancake. Shouter roared and was about to follow in quick pursuit, but Kimora raised his hands in front of him. "Take care of your fellow beastkin! This guy is mine!" Shouter grumbled, but nodded, and Kimora nodded back before turning and running after then man.

The forest opened up into a clearing backed by a cliff overlooking water, and there wasn't much room left to run. Kimora was gaining, and ready to summon whatever creature he felt like to finish the final blow, but had his thunder stolen by a physic blast via Rusalka, which floored the attacker for good. Nadia, out of breath ended up beside him.

"Nadia?" He wildly questioned. "What-what are you even doing here? What happened to-?"

"Now then, I can't let you steal all the fun!" She said, pulling him into a warm hug. "You okay?" she asked after she'd released.

"Oh, I've never been better! But we can chat later, I think someone owes us a few answers," He said, pointing to the man on the ground. Rusalka loomed over him with an angry grimace on her face, warning him not to get up.

"Alright," Kimora said in his most serious voice. "Who do you think you are?"

"You don't know what you brats are doing." He said, turning over on his back, groaning slightly. "There's a whole lot coming your way, and you're gonna wish I'd offed you now."

Upon hearing this, Nadia gritted her teeth and lifted her gauntlet. "Threaten my friend again! Rusalka says, 'We dare you.'" And the Trench Hunter's eyes flashed a bright gold. But, before Nadia's bluff or the man's threats could be called out, a sudden quake knocked the kids down. A second one shattered the ground the man was lying on, tossing him into the drink with a scream of fear.

"Children!" Master Ezra cried out, rushing towards them. "Do you want me to put a leash on you two? It's like you go out of your way to give me heart palpitations." The creature she'd summoned, Granite Avenger, poked its head above the trees to see what its master was so cross about.

"We were only trying to help," Kimora said. "I mean, that guy was bad news, he tried to… well…" He trailed off, not wanting to think about it.

Ezra sighed deeply. "I understand your hearts are in the right place, but this is not that time for swashbuckling heroics. At least with Rusalka, we can use her telepathy to prove Nadia's innocence. As soon as we get back, we are never going to bring this little misadventure up. Ever again."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** To whoever the hell it was that asked if Masters Ezra and Rojas would kiss in this chapter, I'm sorry to dissapoint you. I haven't planned on a kiss between the two of them, but they will have significant amounts of screentime together, especially towards the end. Time will tell what their relationship will blossom into. But, I will admit that Rojas isn't straight, so there's always hope for that!

( **Addendum:** Gilaflame's father's name is the Spanish word for lizard, largarto. I SUCK AT FANTASY NAMES.)

* * *

Tiera and Skycrusher's talk on 'politics' was nothing more than a half-hour screaming match, rife with arguments and some rather unkind words. Admittedly, this is an accurate representation of speaking with someone whose politics you disagree with, but this isn't the time to bring that up. Wakiki herself attempted to cool down the harshness between the two, but didn't get very far until she ended up getting dragged into the fray herself.

Chavez sat at the table beside his superior. He honestly had no idea where they were going with this, nor how to respond to any of it himself, but remained faithfully listening. He couldn't help but feel a bit responsible for this, he'd just gotten so caught up in all the sights and sounds of Blastforge city that he'd completely forgotten about his own rules. It was almost like this visit to this new dojo was awakening something different in him.

It was at this point that he realized he was completely going off track into his own thoughts, and drowning out the current argument between the two as he did. Attempting to rejoin the conversation mid-Skycrusher screech, he sat up straight and turned to Master Tiera, tugging on her sleeve.

Tiera had gotten a bit sweaty and disheveled from her 'politics', and smoothed down her hair and wiped off her face before looking down at him and answering softly "Yes, Hector?"

"Surely there's a way you could settle this without screaming at each other?" He asked, crossing his arms and trying to sound a bit more serious. "I mean, isn't there some way you could win his favor?"

Skycrusher's eyes lit up, while Wakiki furiously shook her head and mouthed 'no' from behind him. "Oh-ho! The fleshbag wants to win my favor?" He toothily grinned ad extended a clawed hand towards the boy. "I accept your challenge, child!"

Hector shook it without a second though as Wakiki whimpered softly and covered her face. Master Tiera then dully muttered "I'm not exactly sure how you'll win any more sympathy from a child than from me, but go on right ahead."

The cyber lord couldn't stand it anymore, and stated "Winning his favor means facing off with him in battle! Your utter lack of foresight is wholly illogical, Acolyte Chavez." She darted towards his side as Skycrusher released from the handshake, noting Hector's dawning horror creeping across his face as he paled.

"No turning back," the Drakon said, leaving the table and exiting the door with his guards. Hector stayed there, frozen in place, slowly ruminating on what exactly he'd just agreed to. Master Tiera was just as disturbed, but knew that she was dually damned if she were to flee with him now. The most that they could do was face the music together, even if it was a shrill droning cacophony as opposed to a gentle symphony. But, Hector felt like he already had an idea of who he would be fighting Lord Skycrusher with.

* * *

The coliseum was similar to the temple's, even though it was massively larger and warmer, and the hundreds upon hundreds of rows were nearly chock full to the brim with Fire creatures. Hector had already equipped his gauntlet, and scanned around the entire area for his opponent. And, in a blaze of superfluous glory, Skycrusher merged, covered in golden armor and wielding a massive sword.

Hector, understandably intimidated, cleared his throat and stood his ground anyways. He performed a summon kata, calling out "Gilaflame!" and out of the breach toppled a very confused looking Drakon. Now that Hector was on the same level as him, he could see the creature was a good foot taller than him, but still minuscule in comparison towards Skycrusher, who seemed equally baffled at his summoning.

"What do you think you're doing?!" he questioned angrily, jabbing an accusing finger at Hector.

"I am… dueling? Aren't we supposed to fight?" He asked, genuinely curious by Skycrusher's anger.

"Either you're too young or too stupid to understand how this works," Skycrusher started. "But, if that's the way you wish to go about it…" He whistled sharply, and out from a heavy set of metallic doors rolled a massive robot. Hector's jaw dropped as it wheeled closer, its turrets and sidling glistening brightly against the bright red sky. He watched as it stopped directly in front of Skycrusher, giving him a passage into the main controls of the bot's cockpit.

"And now we are evenly matched!" yelled Skycrusher from inside of the robot. "Duel me." Gilaflame, now fully understanding the grave circumstances, took on a defensive gait, brandishing his arm blades towards the robot's face. Hector gulped sharply and stepped back, sizing up the robot.

"Alright… Gilaflame!" He lifted his gauntlet, and motioned towards the wheels. "Eviscerate."

Meanwhile, Master Tiera and Cyber Lord Wakiki sat in the bleachers, after having made a silent vow to step in if Hector got in over his head, which seemed almost like the sole outcome. Tiera leaned forward, trying to get a closer look at the action, while a larger Fire creature sidled up to Wakiki's side. The cyber lord groaned as she stared up at him. "Oh, it's you again."

Tiera looked up to see what Wakiki had meant by that, and saw a dark red Drakon, around ten feet tall staring directly down at the both of them. He resembled Giaflame quite a bit, although he was much more muscular, and was battle-scarred and aged. He flashed his teeth at the Cyber Lord, and nudged his head in the direction of the Fire Master.

"Captain Largarto," The cyber lord calmly explained. "Is Gilaflame's father, as well as being one of the Lord's personal drill sergeant for all of his warriors and guards." The captain plopped down beside the Fire Master, and Wakiki quickly squeezed back in between them. Tiera blinked, a bit befuddled by the odd fight over seating arrangements, but went back to watching the fight. All the while, Largarto proceeded to comment on the battle in Draconian, while Wakiki translated.

"He says that he's rather impressed with both of their skills," she relayed to Tiera after his foreign tongue had subsided. And they were doing rather well, with Hector helping Gilaflame dodge the projectiles, and Gilaflame scratching and scraping at the sides of the robot rapidly. Though they hadn't made too much progress, they hand't been defeated outright, which infuriated Skycrusher to no end.

"He also wishes to congratulate you on your pupil," Wakik continued. "As well as your…" Her face blushed bright red, and she smacked Largarto upside the head as he chuckled dryly. "I will not repeat that! You dare speak that way towards a duel master?" she demanded, prearing to smack him again if he were to say anything else.

"Who cares what he said, I think we might have to end this duel ourselves!" Tiera suddenly shouted, in a rushed tone. The Water and Fire creature turned their attentions back to the battle, and gazed upon it with a new dawning terror. It appears Lord Skycrusher had realized that going after the creature was futile if he didn't find a way to stop any more possible attacks. Long explanation short, he'd completely abandoned Gilaflame and had gone straight for Hector, chasing and firing at him on all cylinders in the most literal sense.

Hector noticed his mana was starting to get low as he shielded himself from another missile blast. He breathed heavily, wordlessly regretting everything that he'd done to lead up to this moment. Gilaflame, out of either annoyance of being ignored or sheer adrenaline, rushed over, clawing is blades into the ground and hacking open fissures. The hissing steam covered up the sound of his footsteps as he soon clipped the side of the robot, smacking it off balance.

And, with a loud metallic thud, the robot fell to the ground. Hector caught his breath, and quickly walked out of the range of the missiles, most likely the most grateful he'd ever been in his life. But, Lord Skycrusher wasn't out, as it blasted directly at Gilaflame, knocking the wind out of him as he fell with a screech of pain.

Hector gasped "Gilaflame!" and rushed over to his side. Lord Skycrusher calmly ejected from the steaming wreckage, and towered over the boy with a smug air. Hector only glared back as he looked up at him, obviously betrayed and scared from all that he'd just been through.

"It was a decent fight, don't feel bad about yourself," Lord Skycrusher said with a hearty chuckle. "Besides, you've helped me work out the bugs in one of my Stompers." He turned on his heel and exited the arena. As the other creatures slowly began to drone out, Tiera, Wakiki, and Lagarto jumped down and rushed towards the two.

"Hector," Tiera said. "I know what you're going to say. You tried your hardest, but it just didn't go the way you planned."

"And there will be other battles, I know." Hector said, closing his eyes and nodding. His gauntlet glowed with a vibrant blue aura as he began to heal Gilaflame. His gauntlet powered down after half a minute or so, completely dry of mana. But, the Drakon seemed to be in much better shape, as he hopped right back up on his feet.

The Drakon father and son pair then proceeded to talk, at great length about the battle, with excitement and a bit of cool advice for future ones. This bit of parallels became increasingly noticeable towards Tiera and Hector, who watched with a sense of Déjà vu. They only stopped when Cyber Lord Wakiki reminded them that they may have very well overstayed their welcome, and the two duelists went back across the veil.

* * *

A few hours after Master Tiera and Hector's return, Kimora and Nadia also came back from their little outing with Master Ezra., a bit shaken. When he asked about what had happened, they assured him that it was mostly just boring old peace-talks, nothing too special that he should get concerned over. And when they asked him about what he'd done, Chavez was raring to display his new found friend (as well as his abilities) with flying colors.

Of course, the two of them were extremely impressed, asking about how he'd managed to learn how to train it this way, and how they'd met, which he was more than ready to explain. He was riding high from their compliments, which only peaked when Rojas herself asked about his travels when he returned. But unlike the other two, while Rojas watched, she seemed a bit amused. Hector was confused by this, did she still think that he was undertrained?

But, the real reason behind this was that she saw Gilaflame mimicking his every move outside of battle with childish fervor. It seemed the young Drakon was happy to have made a new friend as well, even if Hector wasn't fully aware of it himself.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Hold your horses, I'm gonna be uploading two chapters in one day. C'mon, I had to get them both out before Valentine's, I couldn't torture y'all on the day of love! I mean, I guess I could if I wanted, but I digress. also, this sorty has massive references to another one-shot I posted ages ago, A Cautionary Tale. Check that one out, it was a little too long at add to this one as a bonus without massively padding the story.

* * *

A few days later, the kids were all busy at work with helping around the temple. Nadia, Aaron, Kelly and a few other acolytes were helping out Brightmore, while Kimora and Chavez were helping Masters Takahashi and August. There hadn't been any more reports of attacked creatures since Kimora had stumbled across the Fear Fang, which was both a relief and a worrying silence. They couldn't have given up that easily, after two children and an Outpost Guardian had killed one of their men, right? It all just seemed too weird, but this didn't stop the masters from their search.

Nadia and Aaron had other ideas for finding out exactly what the Injured Order was all about, and decided to take matters into their own hands. So, after dually claiming that they had forgotten to do "something" for Master Ezra, they quickly went into the darker parts of the temple, passages that hadn't been used in decades. They lit up their gauntlets, and walked into one of the darkest corridors, conversing of their own thoughts of what this violent group truly had in mind.

"What I'm saying is, these people know what they're messing with, and they know their weaknesses, so they've gotta be duelists of some kind," Aaron said. "And the whole inverted symbol looks like it might be some sort of rebellion. But the real question is, what are they trying to rebel against? It's not like the current order is exactly super friendly to the creatures."

Nadia shrugged. "It doesn't have to mean that. Maybe they're trying to make a statement that if they're going to go too far, then everyone else will. Of course, that seems a bit counterproductive…" She stopped talking when their little march led them into a room, filled from top to bottom with old scrolls, some still in their dusty glass cases on the shelves. Both kids' eyes lit up, albeit for slightly different reasons, and they rushed over to them, eager to discover more.

"Wait!" Aaron said. "These things are ancient! We can't just go crazy rooting through all of these. We might destroy them. We have to find one that talks about exactly what we want."

Nadia rolled her eyes. "I know that, do you think I'd really destroy priceless knowledge just for this? But, you do have a point." She performed a Water summon kata. "Aqua Chaser Rusalka!" The trench hunter burst from the portal, a bit startled by the change in scenery, but she quickly regained her calm when Nadia mentally relied her plight.

{Are there any scrolls about creatures being attacked by humans, or anything talking about human-creature disputes? This is sort of a time-sensitive matter.}

{On the top left innermost shelf, there are a few scrolls relating exactly what you'll need to know.}

Nadia nodded, and rushed over to the shelf, Aaron in tow. She pulled out three different scrolls from the notch, and placed them on a table. Careful not to rip or tear any of them, she slid the first one out of its glass casing slowly, as Aaron took the second and unrolled it by its handles gently. He blinked in confusion as he glanced over the paper, examining the drawings laid forth before him.

"This is just… a spell kata. Although, it would be pretty cool to evolve ol' Twin-Cannons!" He looked over at Nadia, who was reading over hers with eyes wide and full of horror. "Uh, Nadia? You alright there? What does it say?" He asked, nudging her a bit as he looked over her shoulder to read the scroll. But she proceeded to ignore him until he'd found a way to shove himself onto the bench to where they could both see it.

"It's a warning," she said softly. "About a duelist who tried to destroy both the creatures, the kaiju realm, and any duelist who stood in his way. Does this remind you of anything?" Aaron's hand flew up to cover his mouth as he gasped, and the two proceeded to scan over the scroll, the similarities between this "Chronarch" and the Injured Order steadily increasing. In fact, they'd become so engrossed in this scroll, they both were unaware that Rusalka had been mentally warning them that someone was coming.

"Aqua Chaser Rusalka, be gone!" Brightmore's voice called out suddenly, and the kids both yelped in panic, nearly falling off the bench as Rusalka was dragged back into the Water Civilization. The Light Master was understandably angered that he'd been lied to, but equally worried that the older library had been re-entered. "You two had better have a good explanation for this." He said, his dark green eyes narrowing to slits.

"We were looking for knowledge!" Nadia answered truthfully. She confidently held up the scroll in front of Brightmore. "And I think you'll be happy with what we've found." Aaron also held up the scroll with The Spell of Temporary Evolution, with just about as much as she. Nigel took the scroll, examined it, and gave it back to her, bit more shakily than he had intended to show.

"I'll admit, the parallels are… staggering. But what could they have to accomplish by mimicking that monster?" He asked. Nadia, not thinking that she'd have gotten this far, froze up. Any possible explanations or theories that had been coursing through her mind for the past 5 minutes had vanished out of fear of mockery or disapproval. All she could really give him was a sort of forlorn expression and a sighing noise and a noncommittal hand gesture.

Aaron, who was still holding up his scroll, cleared his throat to speak up. "If I may? I think this might help us!" He handed it to Brightmore, and then stood next to Nadia, impulsively holding her hand to try and make her feel better. Brightmore clicked his tongue as he looked over it. "This doesn't make up for you two shirking your duties, you know. But, I must agree it's helpful nonetheless." He closed it. "Now, put those other two back. We still have work to do."

The two bowed in reverence, and walked over to the table. Curiosity tempted Nadia, as she was putting the scroll back in the glass case, to see what the third scroll said, but she quickly shrugged it off as she and Aaron returned them back to their shelf, and then returned with Brightmore to the main Dojo.

Meanwhile, Master Rojas had gotten word from Slyth that there had been a minor disturbance on the borderline of the Darkness Realm and Nexus Zone, a possible attack or "example" made from the Injured Order. Not wanting to disturb Chavez from his studies, she went alone and without a creature, depending on only her mana to defend herself from any possible ambushes or traps. But, when she arrived, virtually nothing was there, except the usual bones and remnants from creatures who had strayed too long.

But, something caught her eye, a shining silver light, barley buried beneath the massive skeletal structure of a Lunar Boar. She walked over to it, and began to dig it up, perhaps it was a possible clue left behind or something along those lines. Rojas chipped off the dust and mud to reveal that it was a gauntlet, extremely old, rusted, and unbelievably gaudy. The gems upon the wrist glowed brightly, no longer muffled by the dirt. She coked her head to the side, not knowing what to make of it. She decided that she would simply take it in for study at her own office, and tell the Masters of it when she discovered what it truly was.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: This is the second chapter updated for today, and it's the longest one so far! There is a filler chapter before this one with important background information, so you're gonna wanna read that one before you even think about touching this one. Oh, and here's the Ezra and Rojas interaction that you wanted, anonymous commenter! Then again, it's probably not at all what you wanted, so sorry.

* * *

"That's so cool!"

"No, it's a veil breach that's been a thorn in our side for an embarrassingly long amount of time."

"Well, I still think it's cool that he's been able to survive for so long."

"They."

Hours had passed since Nadia and Aaron's trek into the old library, and Kimora and Chavez were busy helping August and Takahashi as they had been, though the places and chores had varied. For their last "job" of the day, they had been relegated to sentry duty over Argus. Kimora and August were currently in the midst of a slight argument over a beastkin sighting somewhere in the Black Forests of Germany. Takahashi grinned as August's increasing annoyance with the boy made itself clearer and clearer through his tone of voice.

"He's like some kind of Rogue! Hunting the globe, darting around the ranges, searching for-"

"Yes. I'm sure he's having a wonderful time," August said before Kimora could break out into another long-winded spiel about creatures. "Though, if you ask me, I think he's just fled the kaiju realm for somewhere safer, at any rate." He went back to the screens, chuckling at a bit at his own joke. Kimora now diverted his attention to Hector, who was sitting on the ledge of the war room, staring at his flip phone with a worried expression.

"You alright?" Kimora asked, walking over to him. Hector didn't look up, but responded flatly with "She hasn't called me back yet. She should have said something by now. Where is she?" This didn't really seem to be an answer as much as it was him talking to himself.

"You mean your sensei?" Takahashi asked, hearing wind of the half-conversation. "She may very well just be a bit caught up in her own studies, with everything going on right now." He tried to adopt a fatherly tone with that last sentence, hoping to calm the boy's nerves.

"But, it's late!" Chavez responded, looking at him, his expression growing sadder by the minute. "She usually says something by now, she'd get worried, call me a million times asking if I'm okay, and send a few texts…" His voice cracked and trailed off, and Kimora placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"It could have something to do with her other job! Spring break is about to start," Kimora said. The words hung in the air a bit for him. It'd been already two months that he'd been training as an acolyte, and it hadn't felt like anything to him. He continued, not wanting to show any sign of unsureness. "So, she might just be grading the last of the tests… and stuff."

Hector hopped off the ledge and back into the room. "I know, but… I have to be sure. Permission to be excused?" Takahashi nodded, and August waved a hand vaguely in his direction with a small grunt. He bounded down the stairs and straight into the room with the way lines, positioning the platform to intersect with a purple line. Touching it, he was transported directly into the school's basement, and he rushed up and out towards Headmaster Rojas' office.

From outside the office, all he could hear was a soft moaning, scarcely audible unless you had your ear directly up to the door. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door to see her huddled over her desk, her head in her hands. She looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot and tired and her hair unkempt. Hector couldn't say or do anything, he just stood in front of her door with his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

"Close the door," She murmured, wiping a thin trickle of blood from underneath her nose. When he didn't respond, she immediately screamed it again. "I said, close the door! What the hell is wrong with you?" He scrambled to grab the handle, and closed it behind himself as he quickly zipped into the room, rushing to her side.

"How did this happen to you?" Chavez asked, trying to push to her back off of her face. She grabbed his hands, and gently placed them down on the desk before her. She took a deep breath and said "Alright. First thing in the morning," she pointed to a wooden box, tied up in chains. "We are taking that accursed thing and destroying it. Don't let me forget it, don't you forget it, and god above, don't tell anyone else about it unless your life depends on it." She sat back in her hair, still sniffling from her bloody nose. "Got it?"

Hector, feeling a twinge of déjà vu, nodded. He exited the room, remembering to close the door behind him as he did. He slowly walked all the way back to his room, still scared out of his wits as to what exactly could have been in that box that had caused her to explode like that. Whatever it was, he was now grateful that she hadn't called him back.

The next morning came with a sharp knock on Hector's door. He'd been in the midst of packing for going back home to his parents at spring break, and had all but forgotten last night, brushing it off as a fever dream. But, when he opened his door and saw Rojas with the wooden box tucked under her arm, the feeling of dread quickly made itself at home back in his head. The two of them made their way to the way line, and as they entered, the young boy could have sworn he saw a silver light shining from inside the box.

When they'd gotten to the temple, Rojas grabbed Hector's arm to keep him from running off this time, as she marched directly to the room with the temple's council seats. Takahashi and Ezra were already there, and looked over at the almost hysterical Water specialist as soon as she entered. She released Hector's arm with a quick flick of the wrist, and slammed the box down on the table.

"What is the meaning of this?" Ezra asked, still taken aback from her sudden intrusion. Rojas proceeded to respond by taking a key from around her neck, unlocking the lock, slipping off the chains, and sliding the lid of the box. She pulled out the gauntlet, and slammed it on the table. Ezra stared at it for a few seconds, even more shocked. "Where did you find that?" She asked, in an almost angry tone.

Takahashi, more horrified than surprised, picked up the gauntlet, examining it all over. "I… I thought it was only just a legend! You've found the First Gauntlet! This is…"

"The biggest mistake I have ever made." Rojas interrupted, Chavez tried to get a closer look, but this was made nearly impossible when Rojas snatched it from Takahashi's hands, and placed it back in the box. "I need you two to help me get rid of it. For everyone's sake."

"And how do you propose we go about doing that? Gauntlets can only be fully destroyed with total mana overloads!" Takahashi said. "You've heard the stories. If this one was made to withstand the full power of the entire kaiju realm, then how on earth can the three of us even hope to dent it?"

Ezra spoke up this time. "Though we can't destroy it, I do know of a place where we can store it. In my travels of the Nature realm, I've come across an old Water Civilization laboratory hidden underground. It hasn't been touched in hundreds of years, and it's barely hospitable to anything from the outside world. If anyone comes looking for it, they'll give up before they can reach the inner sanctum."

Rojas took a deep breath, and thought over the pros and cons of Ezra's offer, as well as Takahashi's statement. She sighed, and then said "If it's the only chance we have, I'll take it." She then turned to Hector, and knelt down to his level. "Stay here. I don't want anything happening to you." And then, the three masters went off to the Nature Civilization, taking the box with them.

Hector went downstairs and back to the library, where Nadia was already waiting, reading a Light tablet with the name "Sasha, Channeler of Light" written across the top. He sat down next to her, stewing in his own uncertainty.

"I heard about your teacher," Nadia said. "Is she alright?" She looked over at Chavez, giving him a sort of half-smile that gave off a friendly vibe. He shrugged, and went back to pondering about what exactly that gauntlet could have done to his Headmaster. Just then, his thoughts were cut off by Kimora entering the room.

"I knew that I would've found you two here!" he cheerily joked. But, his demeanor mellowed a bit when he saw their serious expressions. "Oh no, what happened? Is Master Rojas alright?"

Hector gave an annoyed sigh. "Why does everyone keep asking me that? Yes, she's okay! She's just really on edge because she found some weird artifact and now she wants to destroy it with the other masters, I don't know!" After his little outburst, he realized exactly what he'd just said and covered his mouth with both hands in horror. "Sorry."

Nadia dropped the tablet, a dawning horror also peaking in her. "Uh, asking for a friend. What exactly was the artifact, again?" Hector, deciding he'd nothing left to lose today, cleared his throat and quietly said "A gauntlet." Nadia leapt off the bench. "Where is she? We need to find her before it's too late!"

* * *

The Water Civilization's laboratory was pitch black, the bright blue lights and metal faded and burned out from years of disrepair. The walls were coated in bodily fluids, as well as blast and claw marks, possibly from escaped experiments. There were massive glass windows peering to the outside, where one of the Water Civilization's smaller cities could barely be seen in the distance, glowing brightly in stark contrast to the rest of the biome.

The masters had made their way into the deserted lab via a cleverly hidden porthole from inside of a tree stump, and had scaled the long ladder descending into the central hub with a dull metallic thud. Lighting up all three of their gauntlets, the masters proceeded to gaze upon their surroundings and came across three pathways. While one was quite visibly blocked off once the three had neared it, there still remained two that seemed to stretch on forever into the unknown.

Takahashi gazed upon the two paths. "It appears we'll have to split up," he said, taking the box from Rojas. "I'll take the one going east, you two take the one going north."

"You're not seriously thinking of going alone, are you?" Rojas rebutted, but Ezra placed a hand on her shoulder soothingly. "If Master Takahashi thinks that he knows what he's doing, we should let him. Besides, it'll be a good chance to walk clear out your head from all this stress." Ezra stated. She nodded reverently towards him, and he did the same for her as they both went their separate ways. But, Rojas couldn't help but feel a bit guilty as she turned for a second to look at Takahashi leaving with the box.

As Takahashi went down the corridor, his gauntlet a lit and the box firmly in one hand, he couldn't help but shake off the feeling like he was being watched. He turned to look behind him, and saw nothing but the endless darkness behind himself. He turned back around, still a bit paranoid. And that's when he started hearing muffled murmuring coming from right next to him. He jumped, looking around himself again and dropping the box.

The box clattered to the floor, its lid coming off and the murmuring becoming louder, so much that Takahashi could hear the whispers clear as day. They blended into each other, some harsh, some soft, mostly harried and frightened as they filled the corridor with noise. Takahashi looked down at that gauntlet, which was giving off an even brighter shine than the one from his, and felt compelled to put it on. It would be helpful in this darkness, and what with its unforetold powers, could easily banish any beast left over from a failed experiment.

"No!" He suddenly yelled out, to nobody in particular. He wasn't going to let his minds play tricks on him, he just needed to find his way to wherever Ezra had told him to put the damn thing, and just be done with it. And then, a much louder noise, most certainly not coming from either Takahashi on the gauntlet sounded off behind him. Scraping metal and rumbling growling emerged from a rather horrific stitched together creature, and it wasn't alone. Around 5 other patchwork creatures, horribly destroyed beyond any resemblance of their former selves surrounded him, one grabbing him up by the throat and holding him up against the wall. Straining to breathe, he desperately scrambled to get his walkie-talkie off of his belt, but it had clattered off and hit the ground about a foot away.

A psychic blast repelled the creature off of him, and the Nature master gasped for air, and looked up to thank his savior. However, instead of it being from one of Rojas, Ezra, or even August's creatures, it the blast had come from Rusalka, who was joined by…

"Children? What are you doing here?" he asked, staring up at Kimora, Nadia and Chavez. Kimora was using a Three-Eyed Dragonfly to blast the other creatures from attacking him while he was down, and Chavez was diverting them from the gauntlet with Gilaflame's flame trails.

"We're saving you!" Kimora confidently called out, as he commanded the dragonfly to wallop one of the Chimeras hands away from him. "And we need the gauntlet!" Nadia added, as she ran over to him and helped him up. Gilaflame snatched it up in his teeth and deposited it in Hector's hands, and the boy placed it in his blazer.

"I don't think you quite know what you're doing," Takahashi said, picking up his walkie-talkie. "That's the-!"

"First Gauntlet!" Nadia finished. "And if anyone gets their hands on it, they'll be turned into a mindless killing machine! That's why we have to study it before we can just throw it away." She ran down the hallway and back into the main room, with the other kids following suit. Takahashi was about to say something, but decided it was better to save it until after they'd escaped, and followed the three down.

When they got back to the start, however, they were in for quite a shock. They'd alerted the other experiments to their presence, and they'd been swamped with nearly triple the amount of creatures. Even with Master Takahashi summoning Steel Hammer to help, the four were hopelessly outgunned by the time they'd banished the fifth one, low on mana and on physical energy themselves.

Hector stumbled backwards, panting heavily as he bashed another beast in the face. He was running low, and so was Gilaflame, who'd lost most of his vigor and was much more sluggish with his attacks. There had to be something, anything that could help. An idea then hit him; The First Gauntlet. He could use that to give himself enough firepower to escape with all of his friends and teachers safe. But, what Nadia had told him and Takahashi rung in his head that he would become a monster of a duelist. But, maybe it was just a metaphorical warning that was transcribed incorrectly?

Whatever was going on with Chavez's psyche, it just ended up in him putting on the gauntlet, and peeling off his own. It fastened itself around his wrist, the gems whirring around and glowing in all the colors of the civilizations. He yelled in pain and fell to his knees as a massive mana wave surged through him. He lifted his hand, and in a loud voice "Gilaflame! Show no mercy!"

Now, whatever had happened to Chavez did more damage than he knew, and a massive fireball coated the entire area. By the time it had cleared, every single creature save Gilaflame was gone, wither having been ripped to shreds, incinerated, or banished back to their Civilization. The Drakkon had no idea what had just happened, and looked down at his paws, trying to make heads or tails of this attack. Chavez quickly ripped off the gauntlet and shoved it back in his jacket, swapping it out for his real one.

Nadia rushed over to him. "What just happened?" She asked in a horrified voice. Hector couldn't speak, already too flabbergasted himself to even realize what he'd done. Kimora, just as scared, looked all around the room and saw a very large crack in the glass wall looking out into the Water Civilization.

Takahashi noticed it as well, and immediately began to push the kids towards the ladder. "We can talk about this later. We have to go now!" As if on some horrific cue, the crack expanded on the last 'now' and began to slowly flood the room. The four of them rushed up the ladder, and Takahashi pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Ezra! Rojas! The building is collapsing! Where are you? You need to escape!"

Ezra and Rojas, meanwhile, had gotten separated from each other, and Ezra was currently searching a supply closet for any sort of Water Suits. She opened the first closet and saw there were many of them already filled and ready to be applied, which she started to tear up and pop as fast as she could. She continued this for every single case, until she was down to only two. Before she could pop them, she hear Rojas' voice calling out to her.

"What are you doing in there? Get out, we don't have much time!"

"I... I know!" She said nervously. She held up the two suit pods. "I was getting us these in the case that we don't quite make it in time!" She ran out of the room, with Rojas following her hurriedly.

Rojas, nearly tripping on her heels and the spilling water, turned to Ezra with a look of extreme dread. "The children followed us here. Thank god that Takahashi was able to get them out in time, who knows what could have happened."

"T-takahashi?" Ezra questioned.

"Yes, he-he's waiting for us above the lab. Come on, then!" Rojas said, but Ezra paused, clapping a hand over her mouth in fear. "What is it?"

"This isn't going out how I'd hoped," Ezra whispered. "He wasn't supposed to get out." She looked up at Rojas. "You. Go. Now! I'll stay here."

"I'm sorry?" Rojas asked. "What do you mean, he wasn't supposed to get out? What's gotten into you?" She walked towards Ezra, confused and angry.

"This was the perfect place for it, and I've failed… I have to do this now. It's only fair, I suppose." She smiled sadly, and pushed Rojas from her. "Leave while you still can."

"No! I refuse to go anywhere until you tell me what you're talking about!" Rojas yelled, pushing her back. Ezra grabbed onto her brooch, trying to keep ahold, but the brooch gave way and knocked her into the rapidly rising water.

Ezra darted past Rojas and to the hub, clutching onto the ladder with all of her strength. Rojas followed suit, wading through the now waist deep water. "I have to die. It's the only way!" Ezra called out to her.

"No, you don't!" Rojas yelled back. "I can save you." Mounting horror covered Ezra's face as she looked between the suits, the brooch, and her friend. She took a deep breath and shakily said. "I know," She sliced open the second suit with the brooch, and activated the first on herself. "But nobody can save you."

Rojas' eyes widened, but before she could say anything, the crack ripped open onto a massive hole, sucking out Rojas and submerging the entire lab. The four duelists above gazed in horror as a typhoon of water sprayed from the hidden passageway. A deafening silence hung in the air until Ezra came out of the passageway, sobbing inconsolably. In her right hand, which she has been holding so hard that she'd sliced her hand open, was Master Rojas' brooch.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** I hope you're ready for some bonafide angst! *strikes a pose*

* * *

Needless to say, the entire temple was shaken by the loss of Master Rojas. Even those adepts and acolytes who hadn't previously known her or were well acquainted with her were devastated at her passing. Takahashi blamed himself, he should have told the other masters where he went; Master Ezra was silent as a stone as she isolated herself from the others, crying softy that it should have been her to die, and it should have been Rojas to live.

Chavez, it understandably seemed, was the one most upset. All he had to remember his former teacher and mentor to remember her by was her brooch, a bright ruby crystal with a metallic dragon claw perched atop it. Ezra had given it to him before she'd went off into mourning, and he'd spent the better half of the evening staring at it, glaring into it, thinking about every single thing Rojas had told him and everything he'd learned from her.

A gentle tap in the form of Master Tiera's hand came to his shoulder. He looked up, and saw her master's equally melancholy gaze meet his. She took a deep breath, and wiping her yes, said "It's time to go. You have a family to get back to." He could tell by her tone that she was just about as uncomfortable as he was to be interrupting him in this time, but she was right. The day had gone by so fast, he'd forgotten all about spring break, and he got up and nodded to her, as they both slowly walked over to the way lines.

Sitting at the library's table, as they usually did, were Nadia, Aaron and Kimora. But, unlike their usual hangouts, they were all dead silent. They all knew how much this had affected Hector, as well as the two Nature masters, and all they felt sick to their stomachs thinking about it.

"I could've come with you," Aaron said, quietly. "I should've come with you, I could have gotten to them too, and I'd helped them get out and I…" His voice trailed off as he sighed deeply, and sniffled, resting his head on the table. Nadia reassuringly patted him on the back, wordlessly telling him that it wasn't his fault that this happened, but even she could barely keep it together.

Kimora, on the other hand, had apparently cried out all of his sadness hours ago, and was silently thinking to himself. He smacked his hand on the table, gaining both of their attentions, and loudly said "I'm not going to sit here and feel sorry about myself! Don't you see that this isn't about us? Hector needs us!"

"What- what are you talking about?" Nadia asked, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her thick wool coat. "What do you mean?"

His voice wavered and cracked, showing that he was still extremely upset, though not in the way everyone else was showing it. "H- He's just lost his only teacher! Probably the only one he knew Kaijudo from. I know that we can't exactly bring her back, but I think… I think there's at least something we can do to help."

Hector arrived home to both of his parents offering their condolences over the loss of his teacher. Even with one of his favorite meals, and watching one of his favorite shows, he couldn't quite shake away the awful feeling inside of him. He went upstairs to his room, threw his backpack on the bed, and then laid down on the bed himself, looking up at the ceiling and sighing deeply. It was then he noticed something gleaming out the corner of his eye, poking out of his backpack ever so slightly.

Pulling it out, he realized it was The First Gauntlet, which had somehow managed to make it into his pack (and even more puzzling, through the airport's metal detectors) unnoticed. But, confusion wasn't the emotion that this object mostly held for him.

Oh no, it was probably the most innate burning rage he'd ever felt in his young life. What kind of useless, all-powerful weapon was this if he couldn't have used it to save Master Rojas? He threw it at the wall as hard as he could, where ricocheted off, and tumbled underneath a dresser with a loud metallic clanking. And with that, Hector curled up into a ball and fell asleep crying.

At around two in the morning, he was awoken by a peculiar ringing in his head, like someone had been calling his name and he'd just now heard it. And, apparently that was that case, for as soon as he lifted his head off the pillow, he heard the voice nearly screech in his head again.

{Hector!}

"Rusalka?" He whispered sleepily. He wondered what Nadia's creature was doing talking to him, and what it was doing talking to him so late. But, he deemed it best to get it over with, sighed, and put on his normal gauntlet. As quiet as he could, he summoned the Trench Hunter, and as surprised when he saw her carrying a satchel around her neck, protected in a water-proof bubble.

Inside the satchel were letters, notes, sweets, and other things that had been gifted or written by the acolytes and masters, as well as his three friends. Most of them were written as happy reminders and cute friendly greetings attempting to cheer him up, but there were also a few more serious ones that were heartfelt and solemn towards what had happened. But the one that caught his eye was a very long, very rambling letter written by Kimora and Nadia simultaneously. It mostly was written with little messages to cheer him up, asking when or if he'd come back, and general positivism.

On the back, which was the only real place that it would fit, was the final sentence that read: "P.S. could you maybe write back?" Hector smiled at it, feeling a bit better than before. Walking over to his desk, and illuminating a small area with his gauntlet, he wrote a very fast thank you note, as well as a reassurance that he'd send back his own letters soon. Though things had gone south in only one day, it was still a beacon of hope that he still had his friends to care about him.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** You ever heard of the term "crash and burn"? This would be "crash, burn, spontaneously combust, disintegrate into dust and then blow away in the wind while taps plays sweetly in G minor" with all honesty.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Hector conversed in secret with his friends, not really leaving his bedroom often, eager to hear what they had to say. It seemed like the silver lining on the darkest storm cloud this side of Seattle, and it did help him with the grief. They talked about their studies, about the masters, about how Takahashi and Toji had daringly attempted to face on a whole squadron of Injured Order cronies, and only lost when one of their creatures panicked out of fear, severing Toji's leg. He felt sort of bad for not being there to witness it, but he knew that he didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

Meanwhile, with his personal life, things had stagnated to a halt. He couldn't tell anyone about anything that had happened without lying to them directly, and it seemed like everyone on the streets had something to say about the untimely death of Miss Rojas. He knew that there were bound to be rumors spread, and it just made him wish he was back in San Campion, away from all of this and near friends and support. The gauntlet, which was now collecting dust beneath his dresser, had all but been forgotten, overshadowed by more important things.

But, it was about to make itself a bit more relevant, as Hector readied his suitcase for his return to the boarding school. There had already been a replacement called in, a distant cousin of Rojas' who would definitely take some time getting used to. After the boy had finished with putting his clothes in the case, a sudden soft metallic ringing sounded in his ears. His gaze darted around, wondering where the noise had come from, and the gauntlet seemed to shimmer in an attempt to get him to notice it.

He yanked it from under the dresser, and saw that it still remained shiny and glossy as ever, even while covered in two weeks' worth of dust bunnies. He sighed deeply, and put it in his backpack. As soon as he got to the school, he'd sneak down straight to the way line in the basement and deliver it to the masters to be dealt with once and for all. And, with that last thought, he yawned deeply and crawled straight into bed.

When he opened his eyes next, he noticed that he was in a weird sort of forested village, which looked ancient as ever and quiet as can be. It was completely dark out, with only the stars and moon to give any illumination. But, he could see that in one of the houses, a young girl around 6 or 7 was staring out her window at something. She quickly looked behind herself to see if anyone was watching her, and jumped out her window when the coast seemed clear.

"Hey, wait!" He called after her, following her into the deep forest. This chase contained for a short while, until she suddenly stopped with a small gasp. Hector, catching his breath, tried to tap her on the shoulder, but his hand went straight through her and nearly knocked him down. Confused and scared out of his wits, he lifted his gaze to see what she was staring at and saw a young boy around his age with Master Jaha's creature, Blackfeather of Shadow Abyss.

{Brother?} The young girl asked. {What… what's that thing? What are you doing?} Even though Hector previously had no understanding of Japanese in the slightest, he somehow could know every word the girl said.

The boy looked up, and then smiled gently. {It's alright, Aoi. She won't hurt you.} The boy patted the Specter on the snout, and then waved his hand (which Hector had noticed had no gauntlet) towards the girl. She filched at first, but then embraced the creature, giggling a bit.

{I guess she likes you already!} The boy laughed, walking over to the girl and kneeling down to her height. {Aoi, do you remember the stories our great-grandfathers used to tell? About monsters?}

Clutching tighter to Blackfeather's snout, the girl nodded, her eyes growing wide. He continued, obviously trying to calm her down. {Well, Blackfeather used to be one of these monsters. But, she's good now. And there are others like her that want to help us fight the evil ones.}

She looked up at him. {I don't want the monsters coming back.} She whispered softly.

{And they won't, not as long as we guardians are here to protect the world.} He said. {Now the, you need to get back to bed, our parents will get worried if we're both out this late.} She released Blackfeather's snout and waved goodbye as the boy proceeded to send her back into the darkness realm with a quick flick of the wrist. And, before he knew what had even happened, Hector woke up in bed.

* * *

"I can't believe this!" Kimora yelled. "This can't be happening, not right now!" He sniffled loudly, the angry tears only helping to further his rotten mood. Nadia herself had never seen him this angry, and was beginning to think that even he hadn't seen himself this angry. Her voice cracked a bit as she said "Look, it's not his fault."

"I know that!" he nearly screamed back in response. "But-but he should've said something sooner! He shouldn't have waited until now! I mean, Rojas dies, Hector gets suspended, Toji gets mauled, and now Aaron's moving away come summer vacation?!" He slammed his head into the table and groaned loudly, the rock muffling his sobs and slight regret from practically head-butting solid granite.

Nadia was quiet for a moment, not sure how to process anything happening at the current moment. She rested her head on her hand as she leaned on her elbow, deep in thought about how to smooth things over. A half-baked idea formulated in her head, which wasn't much, but just enough. She cleared her throat and gently tapped Kimora on the head form where he'd painfully rested his head. "What," he asked, still face down and borderline melancholic.

"Now, look here. You know summer vacation isn't for another 3 months," she said, matter of fact-ly. "So, why don't you two try to smooth it out before then? I mean, it logically makes the most sense, you can't hold this grudge forever, right?"

An even longer silence permeated the room as Kimora thought it over. And then, prying himself off of the table, he gave a deep sigh and sniffled back the tears. "Sure, why not? I'll give him a call or whatever…"

"I will take care of the call," Nadia said, not wanting to ruin this before it began. "You just get your stuff or whatever, and wait for me outside. And no gauntlets, this is a normal talk." Kimora nodded, and slid off the bench to trudge out to the main storefront of the used book shop. Meanwhile, Hector was racing to find a duel master to take care of his little problem, and his prayers were shortly answered when he bumped straight into Master Ezra.

"Wh- Acolyte Chavez?" She asked, a look of extreme concern and confusion on her face. "What- why- what brings you here? I thought-"

"It is a very long story," Hector said, shifting his backpack off his shoulders, and beginning to open it. "But there's something I…" All of a sudden, something inside of him froze. It almost felt like every fiber in his being was telling him to stop, to run away, to get as far from the dojo as possible. "I… wanted to tell Nadia! Is she here?" He asked, suddenly changing the subject.

"In the library, as she is normally," Ezra said, pointing in its direction. Hector cheerfully nodded and skipped off to meet her. The Nature Master watched him as he left, wondering what on Earth was into him, and what had caused him to return? Nadia upon seeing Hector was thrilled and rushed to hug him. But when she released from the hug, she had only one thing to say. "I'm so glad you're here! Listen I have a bit of a favor to ask for you."

At Aaron's house, things were starting to reach a tense head. Kimora was sitting on one side of the couch, leaning his entire boy as far as he could to his side, still blinking the tears away. Aaron sat on the other, his arms crossed and his attention diverted to anything else other than Kimora. Hector sat in the middle, feeling extremely uncomfortable as Nadia attempted to settle the mood by bringing out snacks.

"Is everyone cool with Diet? If not, I can get more-oh!" She yelped, nearly dropping a six pack of diet cola and an entire bowl of popcorn all over the floor as she tripped over one of the many boxes that was in the middle of the floor. Quickly regaining her composure, she sat them on the table in front of them with a nervous chuckle. "Oops, I'm so clumsy."

"Well, if you didn't have the box in your way, you'd probably be a little more... not that…" Kimora said, too overcome with annoyance to think up a good comeback. "If you hadn't have come, you wouldn't have tripped either," Aaron retorted, still looking at the floor. Hector sheepishly extended a hand to reach for a can of cola, but retracted it when he noticed that the two of them were still refusing to even acknowledge each other's presences.

"Well, you are all very welcome!" Nadia said, taking a soda can and a handful of popcorn. Hector once again reached out, and slowly pulled a can loose from the pack, still looking back and forth from the two boys on either side of him. Aaron sighed deeply, and then looked over at Nadia.

"Thank you," He said softly, and then went back to staring off into space. "Nice that you all could drop by, I guess."

"Not like we'll be able to for much longer," Kimora responded incredulously. Hector gulped softly and tried to take a sip of his drink to avoid any possible involvement in the brewing storm that was an argument.

"Look, I get it, you're mad at me."

"Mad? Mad?! I'm so much more than mad, what you seriously had to wait until now to tell me this?!"

"Uh, w-well, it seemed fitting, y'know, I thought if I told you this after then-"

"Then I'd take it in stride because I've dealt with worse! That's how it works!"

Well, Christ forbid I'm a bad friend for not being a psychiatrist!"

"I never said you were! I never even said you were a bad friend!"

"Then what am I to you?!"

"That is enough!" Nadia screamed. And then, a huge seismic wave rattled through the house, knocking everyone around. Her eyes went wide as she whispered "Oh, seriously, right now?!"

"Guys, don't worry! Aaron said. "My gauntlet's upstairs, I'll just get it!" He darted towards the stairs, but the creature that had caused the little eruption wasn't having any of that. It burst through from the basement, knocking him straight down. A sickening crunch was heard as Mistivine Quartz's jaded fist broke Aaron's arm. Kimora screamed in horror, and ran over to him, starting to drag him away from the beast.

Nadia, immensely regretting that she'd told Kimora not to bring his gauntlet and left hers, was currently hiding behind the couch with Chavez. She desperately dialed the store's number as she tried to slow her breathing down. Hector couldn't take watching his friends suffer, he had to do something! And then, it hit him.

The First Gauntlet.

He grabbed his bag, nearly ripped it open, and put it on. Nadia gasped when she saw the familiar silver glow. "You- you've kept it?!" He didn't respond, only extending his hand towards the beast as it noticed him and took a running charge. And, as it bounced off the shield, Kimora noticed the gauntlet as well, gasping loudly, unable to form any words out of shocked terror.

Hector slowly began to goad the creature back into the hole that it had made, the gauntlet hissing with mana as he did. But, just as he was about to get it to fully retreat, it grabbed him by the arm and plunged back first onto the cold cement floor of the basement, banishing away to the Kaiju Realm, leaving the three kids to helplessly watch.

Master Ezra waited in the Nature Realm, pacing back and forth impatiently, until she saw the familiar green glow of her partner creature's return. In his arms, he held Hector Chavez, who had been knocked unconscious by some force. With a gentle tug, Ezra removed the gauntlet from his hand, and grinned widely.

"Oh, Hector," She said softly. "I have never been more proud!"


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Guess who still doesn't know how timezones work? Sorry for such a late update yesterday, I'm just really excited to get to this part, I've been wanting to write it since I thought it up! I guess I just really like the season end climaxes, with all their drama. And, man, I really hope you read A Cautionary Tale, or a good half of this chapter won't make any sense. BTW, Ezra hasn't been kidnapped, even though the masters and kids think so. Context clues are your friend.

* * *

{Master Tobanobu, please.}

Hector's eyes opened at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, and he realized that he was once again dreaming. He appeared to be in the temple, but it was vastly different than how he remembered it, looking a touch younger and with almost no Light Creatures patrolling the halls, replaced by torches. He looked around to see who was speaking, and saw a group of five duel Masters, all of them kneeling around an altar.

The man who had spoken appeared to be a Light Master, and he was chiding the Darkness Master, of whom Chavez barely recognized as the boy from his previous dream. He also saw that the Fire Master resembled the girl. In the Darkness Master's hands was The First Gauntlet, which hadn't appeared to have changed a single day.

{I don't think you understand how important this is!} Tobanobu responded, clutching it tighter to his body. {Do you know how much this will change?}

The Nature Master was the second to speak up. {Change, ha! You really think that a metal glove is just going to magically change how things have been done since the beginning?}

The fire Master, a bit annoyed by the other's scolding and mockery tapped on the altar's top to get their attention as she said {If it's all the same to you, you should at least let him have a chance to demonstrate it, before you all judge.} The Water Master nodded at this, extending a hand and motioning in front of the altar.

Tobanobu have a sort of grateful smile to the Fire Master, and got up from where he was kneeling, and stood in front of the four. Hector braced himself for the worst when the Darkness Master placed on the gauntlet, and it clacked around his wrist with a hiss of mana. And the Darkness Master proceeded to perform the spell kata to open the veil, without a hitch. But, when he attempted to close it, something went horribly wrong.

The breach refused to shut, screeching and crackling as Tobanobu trained to contain it. The other four Masters all rose up, only able to gaze in horror at what he'd done. Straining heavily, he attempted to lower his hand, only for the breach to suddenly crackle out and start to drag him in. The fire Master rushed forward, yelling {Brother!} as she grabbed onto his arm, pulling him backwards. But, it wasn't enough as the Darkness Master cried out in pain as the mana surged around his arm.

And then, in a flash of blue and white light, he was gone. The gauntlet and the Fire Master both fell to the ground. Hector had no idea how to respond, or what even to do next, until a sharp jab jarred him awake. He gasped as he awoke, breathing heavily, and not really taking in his surroundings. But, when he did, he saw that he was in a small, windowless grey room and Master Ezra was right by his side.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that!" She said. "I didn't mean to frighten you!"

"Where… where are we?" Hector asked, blinking in the dim lights, trying to get his eyes to focus. But, he felt like he already knew what had happened. He and Master Ezra had been kidnapped by the Injured Order, no wonder they had her partner creature on hand. But, he did notice that she was holding his gauntlet in her hand, examining the jewels and metal closely.

"We're safe, for now," She said softly as she lifted the gauntlet up to the dim lights. "How on earth did this find its way into your hands? I thought we'd lost it for good in the Water Civilization." Hector was quiet, out of both guilt and paranoia that there might be video cameras or microphones in the room. "Well, it doesn't matter." She said, getting up off the bed. "What matters now is that we have it, and everything's back on track! You've helped a lot more than you know."

The door opened, and a rather tall duelist proceeded to enter the room. Master Ezra, placing down the gauntlet back on the bedside, walked up to him and politely nodded. She went out with him, only turning to Hector and winking before she left. The boy was in shock, absolutely unable to take any of this in, and laid back down on the bed. How was he going to get out of this one?

* * *

"This is madness!" yelled Brightmore, as he and the other masters loudly argued about what to do. Nadia and Kimora, both quiet out of grief and guilt, had come back to the temple with the masters after their call to Master Jaha ended up revealing a little more than intended. They'd hurt one of their friends, stolen a magical artifact, and gotten another one of them kidnapped. Of course, these events weren't fully their faults, but did it ever feel like it.

Sitting on the steps in front of the room, the two of them now had their gauntlets back with them, and they halfly listened to hat the masters were having to say, not like they could do much else other than just sit and wait for it to all blow over; the least they could get is some closure or explanation of what they should do. And, after a short period of silence, the two were called to the table.

"For what's happened to Hawkins, Chavez, and possibly Master Ezra," Master Tiera started. "It's been a universal agreement that the two of you are currently suspended from Kaijudo."

"What, no!" Nadia yelled. "You can't do this, we have to find them, we have to help, we have to- have to…" She stopped dead in her tracks, not wanting to make anything tenser than it already was. Kimora seemed just as shocked, but kept quiet as Master Brightmore got up from the table, and walked over to the both of them.

He extended a hand. "Your gauntlets," The two of them, with the pits of their stomachs feeling deeper than ever, deactivated their gauntlets, and handed them to the Light Master. Brightmore sighed, and then turned back to the table. "August. Escort her home, would you?" The Water Master nodded, getting up as Nadia and Kimora shared one last stare before Kimora bolted out of the room, barely keeping himself together.

When he'd gotten outside of the store, he slid to the ground, his back up against the door, and sobbed loudly. How virtually everything could have gone so wrong over the course of a month, he had no idea. Kimora knew he had to find some way to fix this, some way to save Hector, to help Nadia, to find the gauntlet and Ezra. But, there was something he had to do first.

It was late at night when Nadia had been returned home, and she was scolded for being out so late. She knew she couldn't tell them the truth or make of any excuses without sounding like a fool or a liar, so she merely said that she wouldn't do it again and went straight up to her room. It wasn't like being sent to bed without supper was too bad for her, she had more important things on her mind than eating.

For, you see, young Nadia had a plan for rescuing Hector, as well as getting her gauntlet back. All she needed to do was wait. Wait until all the other Duel Masters were asleep, and then break into the temple with her way line, take her gauntlet back, and get Kimora to help her out.

It was ingenious as far as 14-year old girls could think up, but extremely time sensitive. She assumed she could get a few hours of sleep in before it, but a few hours slowly melded into many, the only thing waking her up being a soft buzzing noise right above her head. Hold on, a soft buzzing nose above her head?

Nadia's eyes snapped open as she saw a cyber virus hovering right above her, its prongs open and zapping slightly. She screamed, and whacked it with a pillow until it stopped moving. Breathing heavily, she wondered why nobody had come to her door to ask why she'd screamed. Ripping her door pen, she immediately went into everyone's rooms, only to find that every single one of her family members was being kept asleep with a cyber virus.

Almost sent into a panic, she rushed downstairs, and was grabbed by Aqua Seneschal. She tried to wrest out of his grip, but he simply picked her up and proceeded to carry her back upstairs as she loudly protested and pounded against him. As he nearly threw her into her room, Nadia screamed again and attempted to run for the door, but he'd slammed it shut and locked it tight.

With mounting terror, she looked out the window, and saw Master August outside of the house. Obviously, August had been controlling Seneschal, and in the distance, she could see a flash of golden light, followed by a dissipating dark green haze floating over the horizon. Ra-Vu's unmistakable silhouette appeared after this, and Nadia ducked out of sight from the window. Well, this plan had gone horribly awry in more ways than one, and she hadn't even been given a chance to start it.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** Kimora doesn't quite know yet that touching creatures is against the rules. I mean, it's not liek he's ever done it himself, and he wasn't there to see what happened to Toji... better hope Brightmore doesn't catch him! Screw the rules!

* * *

In which felt like no time at all, an entire week had passed. Hawkins laid back in the hospital bed, still a little drowsy from the pain medication he'd taken. On one hand, he was kind of guilty that he'd let that thing get away with Hector, and on the other was quietly relieved that he hadn't been caught with his gauntlet when the paramedics had shown up. He barely had time to fully engross himself in this thought before one of the nurses came in telling him that he had a guest. Though barley able to lift hid head off the pillow, he was able to see who it was, and was very shocked by him.

"Ben? I thought you still hated me."

"Not really," Kimora said softly, rocking back on forth awkwardly in the doorframe. He was holding a bouquet of yellow roses, and he kept looking in between them and Hawkins, not really sure what to do next. "I don't think I ever did, I was just kinda… overwhelmed, I guess?" He walked in through the door and gently placed the flowers on a table next to the bed, and knelt down next to it himself.

Aaron smiled at him and attempted to roller over to him while still keeping his arm supported. "Yeah, I'm really sorry about all… that."

"No, I should be the one apologizing! If I'd just told you how I felt before I made a big deal about it, then Hector would still-!"

"Hey, hey!" Aaron said, propping himself up on the arm that was still intact. "That wasn't your fault. None of it was. You've just gotta rethink stuff, and then you'll…" He lost his place, possibly the effects of the medicine kicking in, but continued quickly. "You can still help, y'know?"

"But they…" Kimora leaned closer, not wanting anyone to overhear them. "They took my gauntlet. Ad Nadia's, too! I'm grounded, dude."

"You still have my gauntlet." Aaron said, rolling back on his back. "And the doc says I'll be out by tomorrow, so I can be like a double agent for you! It's up in my room, next to my baseball cards." Kimora, with a sudden rush of exhilaration coming over him, could almost feel the confidence within himself reforming. Yeah, he could totally do this! He could find wherever the Injured Order was hiding out, rescue Hector, and save the realms.

But, there was still one question that he still had. "Wait. Will it even work if I use it?"

"Only one way to find out," Aaron said. "Only one way to find out!"

Meanwhile, Nadia was in a slightly worse mood, and by that, I of course mean she was absolutely miserable. Not only had she lost her gauntlet, but she'd lost her only way to get to the temple. Her own teachers had destroyed it while they thought she was fast asleep. She'd never see Kimora or Aaron or Hector ever again, at this rate, and she could hardly bear it.

Her family had noticed her sudden mood swing as well, which to them, was prompted by nothing much. She refused to eat at times, and barely came out of her room, sometimes sleeping for half the day, or just lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. Though her parents had initially assumed that she was ill with the flu, a trip to the doctors disproved their theory out the gate.

It upset her siblings as well, who had become so accustomed to their baby sister's adventurous attitude that they feared she was dying. They would attempt to speak to her, to ask what was wrong, or to joke around, but nothing ever seemed to get her to open up or even respond to them. Making eye contact, or a slow head nodding was just about as much as she could muster for them, but it wasn't like she was intentionally attempting to make them just as sad as she was.

It was late at night when Nadia's second eldest brother, Erik, came into her room. There she was, as usually she'd been for the past week, curled up into a ball and lying on her bed, facing the wall. She was muttering something to herself that he couldn't quite make out, but he walked over to her bed, and sat beside her. Once she'd realized he was there with her, she stopped murmuring and lay still, as if she were pretending to be asleep.

{Are you feeling any better, sister?}

No response, as usual.

{I, uh, didn't think so. Sorry. It's just that…} He took a deep breath. {This just came out of nowhere! I want to help you with this, if I can. Please, just tell me what's wrong.}

{I don't want to talk about, Erik. Not ever.}

Well, at least she was talking again, he thought. He knew it wouldn't be in his best manners to pry further, so he shifted off the bed, and walked out the door. {Goodnight, Nadia.}He said, and shut the door behind him. Nadia pulled herself out of the fetal position and sniffled a bit as she laid on her back, staring up at the ceiling again.

Something odd, whether it be intuition or a pang of nostalgia (ha— for something so recent) caused her to get up and out of bed to gaze out the window. Most of the snow had melted, but a soft flurry was beginning to remerge through sheer natural willpower. A pit grew in her stomach as she looked over the horizon to see… well, only the horizon, blank and pitch as a canvas sheet.

That is, it was, until a flash of golden light began to shimmer softly. Nadia blinked in confusion and awe, wondering what exactly was going on. Feeling a small sense of déjà vu, she slid on her jacket from the coat hanger on the wall, and quietly went downstairs, as not to wake anybody else up. As she opened the door, the golden light had now taken on the shape of Guardian Ahaal-Tekk, with Kimora seated on top of it, hanging onto its neck for dear life as he attempted to land it in one piece. This invariably failed, and Kimora went flying off the Skyforce Champion, crashing directly into Nadia.

For a few seconds, everything was rushed and awkward as they two disentangled themselves off of each other and off of the floor. But, once they'd regained their bearings, they took one look at each other and tightly embraced, crying tears of joy and just being happy together. Nadia released from the hug, silently shushed Kimora, and guided him out of the house in order not to alert anyone.

"How did you- how did this- you're here?" Nadia gasped, after she'd gotten them out of the house and onto the front yard. "How are you here, I mean?"

"Well, uh, long story, that." Kimora said, shivering a bit. He rubbed his arm from where the torn jacket sleeve didn't cover. "So, let me give you the shorter version. I have my best friend's gauntlet, and a creature whom I have no idea how works, and I'm here to rescue you so that we can rescue Chavez. Does that make sense to you?"

Nadia giggled and smiled, thinking about how much she'd missed the sound of his voice. "I guess so. But, how exactly are we going to find him, or get to him once we have?"

"Well, I was planning on going into the Light Civilization!" Kimora said, grinning broadly. "They have Stalker Spheres of their own, we just need enough information from theirs to help us. As for transportation…" He motioned towards Guardian Ahaal-Tekk. "Our steed awaits us!" He scrambled on top of it, and once he'd gotten his balance, held out his hand to her to take. Though she hesitated a bit, she grabbed it and hopped on, holding onto him tightly as the creature gave a somewhat annoyed neigh and took off.

The snow and wind whipping around them, Kimora attempted to get to a higher spot where they wouldn't be spotted, trying to keep a brave face. Nadia didn't seem to care much, she was back to her normal, cheery self and was enjoying every minute of the ride, laughing loudly as they soared higher. "Hold on!" Kimora yelled, removing his arms from the creature's neck as he sent it away with the two of them still on it.

Though many of her other family members were still fast asleep, Erik Lobachevski had gotten up in the middle of the night to get himself a glass of water, and had noticed Nadia's door was wide open, and her coat was missing. He bolted downstairs, and saw that the door was opened just a crack, and that there was a small puddle from the snow that had been let it. Pulling the door open, he looked out into the dark fields surrounding their house, and saw a set of tiny footprints going out and towards the vast expanse.

{Nadia… I don't know what's gotten into you, but I am staying right here until you get back!}


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:** Here we are, the penultimate chapter! The final countdown! The climax with the final battle! The longest chapter! The... okay. I'm padding this out way too much, so let me get a few things out of the way. Texting was invented in 2003, not 1993, which is the time period of this fic, so sorry for that innacuracy. Moscow and San Diego are 11 hours apart... but who's to say San Campion's in California, I mean? I'm not that stupid, probably! Anyways, enjoy, and be on the lookout for an epilogue!

* * *

Over the past week, Hector himself had been learning a thing or two as well about Master Ezra and this Injured Order. Apparently, their end goal had been to find the gauntlet, which they had been searching covertly for, while using the hurt creatures as a decoy. The good lot of them were duelists and specialists themselves, rather than hired guns just haphazardly thrown into the world of Kaijudo. What seemed to shock him at first, but slowly became clearer, was Ezra's involvement in all of this.

She was their leader. How she'd managed to keep that from the watchful eyes of the Duel Masters – of her most trusted friend – seemed almost inconceivable. And not only that, but murdering Rojas on top of all that (which Hector was almost positive she'd done even if she wouldn't admit to it), only confused and tensed his nerves more.

In the meantime of all these thoughts, he'd been battling with Ezra, ironically. Her Mistivine Quartz was at his side, while she was using an Ancestor Bear. The Spirit Quartz was understandably difficult to master, but he'd think he'd gotten the hang of it, as he landed hits and dodged them fairly well. But, this wouldn't last for long, as the bear nearly pounced on him, and the gauntlet's mana shield ended up taking out both creatures.

"Sorry!" Hector said after the smoke had cleared, and Ezra started to walk towards him. "I… I still don't have it completely under control!" He smacked the side of the gauntlet, trying to think up excuses to lower her rage. But, instead of being angry, she merely grabbed the hand with the gauntlet and examined it.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, her hand brushing over the gems gently.

"A little bit," he said, pulling his hand away. He worked off the gauntlet, which came off with a soft, dull pop. He glanced at the dark red marks that had been rubbed into his arm for a second before looking up at Ezra and extending it to her.

"Oh no, that's yours now. I can't use it anymore," she said. "You were the first one to have activated it for so long, you know."

"Yeah… after its first master, Tobanobu."

"Well, there was also the Chronarch, you..." She paused, taking in what Chavez had just said. "How do you know his name?"

Hector froze, and quickly thought up a lie in order to evade any trouble. "It- it was Master Jaha! She's been around for a while, and she was just talking about things that had happened in the past, and…"

"It's alright, I don't need the full story." Master Ezra said. "But, what you should know is that this gauntlet is the most important thing in the world right now. And, it's yours to keep until the day you die."

"But, it's totally useless! I can hardly battle with it, I keep losing control of my creatures, and sometimes it's just too strong to even defend myself with." Master Ezra, not paying any mind to the boy's complaining, simply fit the gauntlet back on his hand with a quick shove. He grunted a bit from the small jab of pain, and she condescendingly patted it into place.

"Then I suggest that you try harder. You won't learn anything if you only keep up with your whining."

* * *

Aaron made his way to the book store, after telling his parents about wanting to calm the nerves of the kindly owner, which was somewhat of a half-lie but a lie nonetheless. Appearing at the door, however he saw an unusual sight. The antiquated sign on the door read "fermé" or "closed" in English, which it almost never had at mid-day. Nevertheless, the door was still open by some feat of luck, and he got into store without a second look from any bystanders.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, once he was sure that he'd made it in without being spotted, and pulled out the antenna. Clearing his throat, he dialed Kimora's number and waited patiently for a response. When the soft click of Kimora's receiver could be heard, he took a deep breath and said "I'm in."

"Oh, great! That's great! Wait, hold on a second, alright?" Kimora and Nadia were currently holding up in the Light Civilization, the only real place that they seemed safest from both the Injured Order and the Duel Masters. Nadia had fallen asleep again, from all the stress and exertion, and was curled up on the ground, using her jacket as a pillow. This apparently was enough of a scene to cause a group of Stalker Spheres to huddle around her, which Kimora had taken notice of and was trying to shoo away from her and get back to the task at hand.

"Anyways," Kimora said, after he'd gotten a majority of them to fly off. "You sure nobody's seen you?"

"Nope!" Aaron said, as he walked down the steps leading to the temple. "I'm home free, so far! Hey, quick question, did you tell your parents we were hanging out or something? Because they're kinda freaking out, not knowing where you are."

"It… slipped my mind." Kimora said, gently face palming at being so absent-minded. "I think maybe our gauntlets are somewhere in Toji's keep. I didn't really get to see exactly where, though."

"Y'know, I think I'll have a lot of time to find out where they are." Aaron said, looking around the temple. It was completely silent, aside from the Light Creatures zipping around as they usually did. "Because it looks like the masters took a day off."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, nobody's here! I'm pretty sure even Toji's out." He looked up at the War Room, thinking that maybe he'd get a clue as to what was going on. "Hold on, too." Aaron marched up the stairs into the room, and sure enough, there was Argus, with an image of another abandoned Water Civilization base.

"Oh, man! Kimora, they've beat you guys to it! They're at the base."

"What?!" Kimora yelled. This awoke Nadia, who rolled over and rose her head a bit, wondering what was going on. "Where- where is it?"

"Uh, Water Civ, I think? It's definitely one of their bases. Look, you summon Argus to where you are, get to the base, I'll get your gauntlets, and then I'll be over there soon as I can. Be safe, man."

"You too!" Kimora said, and then hung up. Nadia stretched as she got up, yawning a little bit. "Hopefully, I didn't miss much," she said sleepily.

"Nope, I'd say you're just in time for the main event!"

* * *

One look-see and another bumpy ride on Guardian Akhal-Tekk later, Kimora and Nadia had unceremoniously made it to the base, where they could pretty clearly see that there was a massive battle going on. All five of the Masters and Toji were armed to the teeth, with their partner creatures steadfast by their side and defending them furiously as thy attempted to cut in deeper past the lab's own defenses. In order not to face harsh judgment, the two kids quickly directed their creature away from the battle and towards the more remote places.

Helping Nadia off of the creature and banishing it back, Kimora could see that there was a massive labyrinth of passageways ahead of them, reminding him of the former underwater lab. He shuddered a bit, and then turned to Nadia. "Okay, here's the plan. We split up, and when one of us finds Hector first, we go back here and wait for the other to come back. Then, we leave as fast as we can before anyone finds out we're gone!"

"What about Hawkins?" Nadia asked. "What's he going to do when he gets here?"

"Backup, maybe? We've just gotta do this fast, okay?" He gave her a quick hug, and bolted down the farthest left hallway. Nadia, a smidge taken back by the hug, quickly glanced down each hallway before she noticed a white flash coming from one of the ones second from right. Assuming that was her best bet, she dashed down that hallway as fast as she could.

As those two proceeded on their way, Hawkins had arrived at the base with Twin-Cannon Maelstrom at his side. He held both Nadia and Kimora's gauntlets in his coat pocket, and quickly scanned the area to assess what was happening. He could already feel the ground vibrating from the occurring battle, and assumed it would be best to hide in plain sight. He commanded the Attack Raptor to blast full forward at the opening of the base, shattering the roof and creating a pretty massive opening for him to enter.

"Okay… that sort of worked." He muttered, as he moved forward, darting around duelists, debris, and creatures as quick as he could. Unfortunately, he caught the attention of a rather confused and annoyed Master August. "Adept Hawkins! What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Well, you see…" Aaron started. "Bye!" And then he rushed off deeper into the building. While August had been the only one to spot him, this didn't stop the Water Master to drag Aqua Seneschal away from the chaos and down the hallway.

Hector remained in his room, sitting on the bed in deep meditation. The door to the room clacked loudly as it attempted to open, but to no avail. He ignored this, assuming it was vibrations from Ezra or another one of the duelists fighting. But, a loud THUD as well as Nadia's voice crying out in pain and swearing loudly in Russian proved otherwise.

"Nadia? Is that you? What's going on?" he asked as he hopped off the bed and rushed to the door. From the other side of the door, he could hear her breathing heavily as she rubbed her boot in attempt to alleviate the pain. After a deep inhale and exhale, she responded.

"I'm going to try and rescue you! Can you try and get the door open from your side?" she asked. She then proceeded to shove all of her body weight on the door and push, as signified by the gentle thump he heard. There wasn't really much in the room that could be used as a sort of fulcrum or lever to pry it open, but there was once thing he could use.

Placing on the gauntlet, he called out to her "Stand back! I don't know if this is going to work or not, but just be safe!" And then, he activated the shield directly in front of him, causing the door to buckle and bend outwards, creating just a big enough gap for her to pry it open. Straining gently, she pulled it back and stepped into the room, rushing directly to him and pulling him into a warm embrace.

"She didn't hurt you, did she?" She asked, still holding him tight. Hector returned the embrace and said "No, no, I'm good." Just then, Kimora came down the hallway with Aaron in tow, and looked upon the scene, with the busted door and the two hugging. Nadia pulled out of the hug and gently tugged on Hector's arm to bring him out the door with her.

"I see you've brought the backup!" She said cheerily. Aaron grinned and handed her gauntlet back, but it faded into confusion when he saw the first gauntlet still tightly clamped onto Hector's arm. "You still have that?" He asked. "Can you even get it off?"

"Well, yes. But I'm going to need it on right now! Something big is about to go down, and I think we're the only ones that can stop it." Hector responded, clenching the gauntlet into a fist.

* * *

August had lost Hawkins a while back, but he'd come across something else a bit more concerning in his chase, as alerted by Aqua Seneschal. After getting dragged into a corridor almost forcefully, he know found himself walking up a massive set of stairs that seemed to spiral and ascend into infinity. But, after quite a bit of climbing, he made it to the top, where he found Master Ezra, standing at the end of a long walkway looking over a massive room.

On the front wall of the room were 5 veil breaches, each one being artificially held open into the separate 5 different Civilizations. At the bottom, which she was positioned directly over, was a portal which led into a strange, unknown realm which had a foreboding silver tint. It wasn't nearly as big as all the other ones, but it was rapidly growing in size and hissing.

"Ezra, what do you think you're doing?" He demanded. She glanced over her shoulder, gave a quick nod and went back to observing the breach widening. She then responded with "I'm just waiting for this to end, that's all. Don't worry, you'll get to see it soon."

"See what, exactly?" He asked, grabbing her arm and turning her to stare him in the eyes. She glanced at him coolly, almost as if she was at peace. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and stepped back, still maintaining eye contact. After she'd rubbed the red marks from her arm, she proceeded to tell her tale.

"I'm getting rid of the creature realm once and for all. I'm going to bring him back. You've heard the stories of the Chronarch, haven't you?"

"Stories!" August yelled at her. "That's all they are. Stories to warn duelists to not let their power get to their heads."

"Then, pray tell, how was Master Rojas able to find the gauntlet used in this little 'story', as you so call it?" she asked, throwing up an eyebrow. "Like it or not, sometimes things aren't that deep. There's not 'greater meaning' to that story, it was a veritable news report. And so, I'm going to find him and return the gauntlet, so that he might continue what he was destined to do."

"What he was- he was a murderer! He killed both duelists and creatures alike!" He stopped after that sentence, noting that not only was Hawkins in the building, but the other three acolytes, beyond all semblance of rationality. He could see what they were doing, closing the breaches manually to stop the biggest one from expanding any more. He realized that they would be severely injured if she was to discover them – or worse. So, he proceeded to do what he did best: mock, jeer, and overall worsen her mood in order to keep her from discovering them. "You think he'd make an exception for the likes of you? You're not special."

Without skipping a beat, Master Ezra stated "Why else do you think I had to drown Rojas? I wanted it sorely to be Takahashi, but time was short and he needed a sacrifice." As she spoke, three of the veil breaches behind her snapped shut.

This infuriated August. "She was your best friend! You offed her for the sake of some convoluted plan about some horror story that hardly anyone remembers?!"

"I did what I had to! You would have done the same, had the cost been too great for your plans. I'm sure she'd forgive me."

"Well, the only way to be sure is to ask her yourself." And with that, Aqua Seneschal proceeded to knock Master Ezra straight into the portal, paying no mind for her response. Without even screaming, she plummeted off the edge, staring in horror at the Water Master. Mere seconds before she'd hit the center, her expression calmed, and she shut her eyes tightly. And then, she was gone, disintegrating into mana upon impact.

But, that wasn't the only thing to happen, no. The second that Ezra's body had completely vanished, the portal shot upwards, sending a geyser of raw mana blasting upwards. It knocked the children back onto the walls, as well as shoving Master August and Seneschal from it. Aqua Seneschal was banished almost instantly from the sheer magnitude, and the duelists were all dazed and quite terrified at what had just happened.

The mana 'geyser' then shot back down into the breach with a loud hissing. At once, it began to howl and blow, as it started to drag all of them closer, nearer to a similar fate as Ezra's. Nadia, and Aaron were barely able to hold onto the guide bars that had been holding the other breaches open, but not such luck for Hector and August.

Hector, with the gauntlet now flickering and the gems on the cuff spinning faster than ever, was desperately trying to dig his feet into the ground, but to no avail. August, who'd still been a bit stunned by the blast, was now being dragged feet first into the breach, and could only desperately grasp at the walkway for his own life. It was at this point, with a dawning horror, that she'd wanted this to happen, that her death was the key to causing whatever this abomination was doing.

Hector fell to his knees, the pull of the portal straining everything in him. But, he had to close it, for everyone's sake. Attempting to get up, he wobbled up into a crouching position and tried to pull himself up. Blinking back into consciousness, Kimora groaned and rubbed his head, before taking in what was happening, and gasped. Nadia, noticing that he'd come to grabbed his arm to prevent him from being dragged forward.

"You okay?" she asked loudly, trying to yell over the loud rumbling and howling of the breach.

"I've been better!" Kimora called back, yanking his arm out of Nadia's grasp. "C'mon, we've got to do something!"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me right now!" Aaron responded. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I appreciate how nice you are, but what can we do right now?!"

"S-something! There's got to be something!" Kimora's eyes darted around the room, as he took everything in. Chavez was dangerously close to the portal, and was struggling to get up on his two feet. Master August was hanging on for dear life on the end of a platform above the portal, as the wind threw him around. "Uh… Chavez!"

Against his better judgement, Kimora let go of the bars and trudged towards Hector, careful not to get too close to the portal. He fell in a heap, nearly knocking him over as he grabbed one of his legs. Hector yelped in surprise and then looked down at Kimora. "Hey! Get off of me, I'm trying to-!"

"Close the breach, yeah!" Kimora yelled, over the wind. "And I'm helping you. If we can all pool our mana together, we can take this thing out!" Nadia and Aaron stared at the two for a second, before guessing that they'd no more to lose even if he was wrong and released their bars as well. They extended their arms as their hands in their gauntlets began to glow, giving off mana, and Kimora grabbed Hector's wrist with his glove as his began to glow as well.

As the building began to shake violently, Master Takahashi had found his way up the stairs and onto the walkway to see one massive nightmare of a scene. Master August was now barely hanging on with one arm, and he'd been looking straight down into the portal, mesmerized with terror and unable to do much of anything. Takahashi grabbed his arms and yanked him upwards, bringing him to the safety of solid ground and held on tight.

And, with the final amount of mana seeping into the first gauntlet, Kimora released Hector's leg and Hector began to perform the spell kata to close the veil, with only a few feet left of solid ground before him. At the second it closed, a brilliant flash of blue light crackled in front of everyone's eyes, and the other two portals slammed shut as well. The First Gauntlet, which had finally seemed to have taken a beating, slipped off of Hector's arm with a metallic thud.

The four kids stood around, not knowing what to make of what just happened. This was quickly broken when Hector, of all people began to laugh. A squeaky, sort of broken and ridiculous laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. They all joined in and got up and cheered and hugged each other, glad that this was all finally over, and that they'd won.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:** I live, I die, I live again! This time, instead of breaking my computer, I just about barfed up and sneezed away half my internal fluids, ugh. Really sorry for the wait, guys. I've had this chapter half-finished for at least two weeks now, but I couldn't get all it out before I caught some bug. Anways, enough about my gross bodily functions. I want to thank everyone who's read, favorited, and reviewed my story, it means a lot to me. I will get another chapter of Year 2 out soon, and try to kep a better update shedule on it than just "vaguely once a month" or whatever. Once again, thank you all so much for coming along for the ride.

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Guardian Akhaal-Tekk skidded to a much more controlled, albeit still bumpy, halt directly in front of the Lobachevski residence. Aaron had agreed to let the three of them throw him under the bus to explain everything that had happened, ensuring a quick getaway to bring Nadia and Hector to safety. As the young girl slid off the creature and plopped into the snow, Kimora loosened his grip on the reins and slid off the beast to walk her to the front door, but she stopped him when he'd barely held out his hand.

"Hey, I'm okay, Kimora," She said quietly. "I think I can handle a few feet to the front door."

"Oh! Sorry…" He retracted his hand and stood in the snowy landscape, shivering a bit from the cold. "Are you sure you're going to be alright? I mean, you took on a lot of residual mana, and…" She interrupted his sentence when she stepped forward, and he stepped back in response, a bit confused.

"You are far too sweet," Nadia said. And then, she stood on tip toe to give him a small kiss on the mouth. Kimora just about squeaked, bumping up against the Skyforce Guardian, while Hector gave an impressed whistle and grinned. Meanwhile, Erik had fallen asleep on the floorboards outside the front door, and sharply awoke to the sound of the whistle.

{Nadia! You'd best have an explanation for…} He stopped mid-sentence, taking in the scene. His little sister had just pulled away from kissing a young boy leaned up against a golden unicorn, which another boy was perched atop. He continued to stare open-mouthed, unsure of what to make of it. Nadia giggled softly and walked back to the house, dragging her brother back inside with her. She waved one last time as she closed the door firmly.

A very bright-red Kimora crawled back on top of the creature, and the two boys flew on back to the boarding school, taking a much-needed shortcut through the Light Civilization. As Chavez climbed off of Akhaal-Tekk, Kimora sighed wistfully and rested his head down. "Do you think she likes me?" He asked Hector.

"Well, I think you're going to get in trouble for riding a creature. It's against the rules." At this remark, Kimora leapt off the creature as fast as possible. "I didn't know, oh gosh. I mean, I just assumed that it was okay, they do have saddles built into them and… it won't happen again."

"Ah, it's alright, you didn't know." Hector said, clapping a hand on Kimora's shoulder. He then pulled him into a bear hug, which the other boy was more than happy to return. "Thanks, Kimora. You know, for coming to help me. You didn't have to, you know."

"Least I could do! You're a good kid!" Kimora said, as they both released from the hug. "The real problem is explaining all of this to your teachers." But, they could hear Master Jaha's voice distantly rang out, as if on cue. It seemed like they weren't in as deep trouble as they thought.

Master August, however, wasn't so sure about letting them off so easy. He'd been pretty shaken up from Ezra's little demonstration. The strain that she had to have had put on the veil with all those portals opening up couldn't have been small, and he knew it. And from the sixth portal was nothing but a null, dead landscape. Even if the Chronarch was just a silly little fairytale, god knows what it would lead to.

He knew that there needed to be some sort of failsafe, if this would lead the veil to fall, he just needed to figure out what exactly it was. However, what he remembered most was her little speech about her harebrained plan, which was starting to ring loudly and clearly in his ears.

 _"I did what I had to! You would have done the same, had the cost been too great for your plans."_

Sure, he hadn't exactly schemed a rational plan so far, no. But, needless to say there would definitely be some who would 'disagree' with certain aspects of it. Takahashi and Brightmore were the first to come to mind, but they were malleable enough. Jaha was on no one's side but her own, and dear, sweet, darling Tiera? Well, he'd not have to worry a thing about her, she was loyal as a Labrador to him, and just as vicious. All he needed was time, and he would be able to save the world as well as everyone he cared for, and nothing on Earth would stop him.


End file.
